no halo, an' one wing in the fire
by silver ruffian
Summary: Dark AU. This is the very first Gabriel Bender fic, posted on FFnet, in 2007. Now updated. Dean Winchester is kidnapped at the age of seven; he grows up with the Benders instead. John and Sam rescue him years later, but Dean can't escape his own dark destiny.
1. Measure of a Man

**_A/N:_** The title is taken from Trent Tomlinson's song, _One Wing In the Fire_. I was inspired to write this after I read tigriswolf's incredible fic, _sinkin' like a setting sun_, which was fifty non linear sentences about Dean. I'd been looking for a way to flesh out this little plot bunny: what if Dean had grown up living with the Benders instead of the Winchesters? After I read tigriswolf's fic, that damn plot bunny started gnawing at me (with those big godawful teeth!), and that was enough to send my already twisted imagination careening away in all the wrong directions.

_**Dedication:**_ To tigriswolf. She bugged me about expanding this sick puppy; she also beta'd this chapter.

_**Warnings:**_ Cursing, cannibalism, m/m sex (dubious consent), underage sex (dubious consent), animal abuse, murder. Violence. Missy is a little older than she was in _The Benders_, but she's still younger than Dean. Dean's been missing for about twenty years. Big John's alive and well. Sam never left for Stanford.

_**Summary:**_ Dark AU. First posted in 2007. Now updated. Dean Winchester is kidnapped at the age of seven; he grows up in the Bender household instead. John and Sam rescue him years later. Dean's problems are only beginning; the YED wants to claim him as his own.

_**Pairings in the 'verse:**_ Dean/Lee Bender; Dean/Jerry Bender; Dean/Missy Bender; Dean/OC, Dean/Ellen; Dean/Azazel/John

_**Disclaimer:**_ I don't own Supernatural. This is for entertainment only, not for profit.

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**_Part 1 - Measure of a Man_**

**_I. Dean, Interrupted_**

It's hot and dark in the trunk of the car, and all he can think about is that at least she didn't get Sammy. His head hurts, and the duct tape around his wrists and ankles is so tight his hands and legs are going numb. Dean can feel himself slipping away. He's more than half dead by the time she stops for the night and opens the trunk, and she takes the duct tape off his mouth, gives him mouth to mouth, and pours water down his throat after he coughs and starts to breathe again, and she's already decided that this little damn blond kid is going to be more fucking trouble than he's worth.

Blood in the corners of his mouth, duct tape too tight around his wrists and mouth but he still backs up when she pushes him forward so she slaps him in the face. Hard. "Heard about your loss, cousins," the woman says to Ma and Pa Bender, twining her fingers tightly in Dean's hair. "Here's a little something I picked up that might make you feel better."

He remembers Dad telling him to hold down the fort while he's gone, hears laughter and sees the church lady singing songs to him and Sammy during the day. He smells blood and sees a shadow standing over the church lady lying quiet and still on the floor at night.

He's slammed face first into the wall so hard everything goes white. Large strong hands grab him by the scruff of his neck and when he tries to fight he's slammed again and goes sliding into blackness.

"Sammy, be quiet. Please, Sammy, you gotta be quiet." The kid's voice sounds just like his did once, but when he wakes up he can never remember who Sammy is.

**_II. Gabriel, Ascending_**

He gets these headaches sometimes, and they're always bad. He doesn't know why. Had 'em since he was little, and they don't seem to be getting any better. The pain settles right into the top of his skull, dull and heavy, and he always feels like he wants to close his eyes, curl up in a ball and die.

Happens once or twice a month, at least. He always hides whenever he feels sick like that. Doesn't pay to show weakness around the others, not even Missy. He'd rather have them think he's jacking off somewhere or doing something else disgusting, rather than being sick. So Gabriel hides, sometimes in one of the rusted out cars out back.

He particularly likes this rusty black Mustang that's sitting on four flat tires. When he was younger he'd pretend he could turn the ignition on and just drive away.

_Damn pretty boy,_ Lee thinks to himself. Lee always tries to mark up Gabe's face for some reason, every chance he gets. Gabe's too quick for him, and most of the time Lee's too slow.

Gabriel hears whispers, begging and screaming inside his head, sees shadows bleeding and falling to the ground as he sits there stringing those bones together for the wind chimes.

Sometimes Gabe remembers the woman with the long blonde hair. Remembers how good and clean she smelled, how it felt to have her fingers run through his hair, the sound of her laugh, the way her eyes grew warm whenever she looked at him.

He tries to remember her without all the blood and the flames.

Lee and the others don't dare bother him around Pa, so Gabe hangs around the old man as much as he can.

Missy tells him that he's sick in the head, and she can help him out with that knife she always carries with her. She offers to carve a hole in his forehead to let some of that bad stuff out, and Gabe always politely declines.

Pa sits in that big ol' overstuffed chair in the living room, the one that's seen better days, and he's tired. Gabe can smell the sweat and blood, the dirt on Pa's clothes, the peculiar slick copper smell of that rubber apron he wears sometimes, and that thick, heavy body odor of Pa's, but none of that bothers Gabe. He sits down cross-legged on the floor next to Pa, silent and graceful as a cat, careful not to startle him, and he waits. After a while Pa looks at him sternly, and his face softens a little bit. Gabe very carefully leans his head against the side of the old man's knee and closes his eyes. Pa's thick grimy fingers gently stroke the side of Gabriel's face, and his hand finally settles heavily on the boy's right shoulder. Gabe settles down underneath the touch and lets out the breath he didn't even know he'd been holding inside.

The first time he sees Pa use that meat cleaver of his on what was left of that guy they hunted, Gabriel stands there staring, pretending it doesn't bother him. He pretends he's somewhere else far far away with each chop of the cleaver through the meat into the worn countertop.

Gabe hates it when Missy follows him when he's sick. He can't think straight enough to hide really well when he's like that, and she finds him sometimes. He doesn't always wake up right away when she jabs him in the leg with her knife.

"Gabriel. Come here, pretty boy." Ma looks at him with sad grey eyes, and when she puts her hand out Gabriel shies away, until Pa pushes him forward.

Lee and Jerry are brothers, and Gabriel knows there's no room for a third.

The yellow-eyed man in Gabe's dreams always tells him how disappointed he is that Gabe doesn't use the gift he gave him, doesn't even acknowledge it, and Gabriel is finding it harder and harder to ignore the bastard.

Gabe seems to have eyes in the back of his head and his nerves are always strung way too tight when he's around Lee and the others, and that hyper alertness and cat quickness has saved his ass from serious injury on many an occasion.

When he was younger he'd read the Bible to Ma, and she was impressed that he was able to pronounce those Biblical names correctly.

His earliest memory of Pa is the old man stroking his hair and staring hard at Gabe's face. Pa seems bigger, and Gabriel can't understand why. "I'm gonna name you Gabriel, after my pa's daddy," the old man says, and then the pain in Gabe's head gets really bad and he sleeps for a while.

Pa's only had to beat him really badly twice. The first time was when he accidentally let the boy and the bitch out of the cage.

That field out back is filled with logs and stones and boulders, and Gabe hates it when one of his chores is to haul the stupid freakin' logs out and dig the motherin' stones and boulders out by hand.

Ma dies quietly in her sleep five years after Gabriel arrives.

One time Lee gave him a bottle of water to drink when they were out in the barn. After Gabe drank it his mouth and tongue went numb and he went to sleep. When Gabriel woke up he was lying face down in the hay with Lee on top of him, grunting and pushing into him from behind.

Gabriel's the youngest male in the house. Missy's the little princess. Gets anything she wants: clothes, body parts, jewelry from the people they hunt.

Lee was the first one to die when the hunters showed up. No great loss.

The second time Missy slipped into the bathtub with him Gabriel was so tired he zoned out and he vaguely remembers her hungry mouth and busy fingers on his slick wet freckled skin.

Sometimes in his sleep Gabriel hears a low rumble of a voice, sees a big dark man with heavy stubble dressed in black, smiling at him, the skin crinkling around his eyes when he does.

"Angels are watching over you," the blonde woman told him, but Gabe knows that's not true, because if angels _were_ looking out for him, no offense, they're doing a mighty piss poor job of it.

He knows why Lee doesn't like him, wonders why Jerry and Missy pretend they do.

Ma didn't have much to say about the hunts and what happened to the people; she pretty much accepted it, just like she did Gabriel and everything else.

He's green-eyed, eighteen, and absolutely drop dead gorgeous, and Kathleen blushes a little as he peels off his dirty t shirt. Her hand shakes slightly as she hands him her card with her direct number at the station house in Hibbing and he smiles brightly at her when she tells him to call if he sees anything strange.

When he was younger, Gabe thought about running away. Then he went along on his first hunt with Pa and quickly decided_ that_ was a bad bad _bad_ idea.

The first time Missy came at him with a knife Gabriel slapped her hand aside, punched her in the face and knocked her flat on her ass. She looked up at him, grinning.

The second time Lee tried to touch him Gabe grabbed him by the throat and felt his fingertips ghost underneath Lee's skin. Lee turned pale and passed out. Gabriel dreamed of laughing yellow eyes that night.

Ma was Missy's mom and she was Pa's sister. They buried her somewhere on the property. Pa knows where.

"Now, Gabriel," Pa's voice drops to a low rusty purr that rattles Gabe's insides, even as Pa's belt paints white hot stripes on Gabe's bare back with every stroke. "M'doin' this for your own good. Ya got sloppy. Can't afford to have cops comin'out heah."

Lee and the others look at him sometimes, all hungry, like he's a piece of meat, and they'd like nothing better than to tear into him with their hands and teeth. Gabe doesn't like that look. If they ever try to jump him as a group, he ain't backin' down.

Gabriel doesn't even ask what's in that meat stew they eat sometimes. He already knows, and he doesn't want to hear_ that_ spoken out loud.

"Such a beautiful boy," the man whispers into Gabriel's ear. He slowly smudges the boy's full lower lip with his thumb and stares hungrily into those wide green eyes as Jerry creeps up behind him with the billy club in hand.

Gabriel never mentioned what happened in the barn with Lee to anybody, but he started carrying a small silver knife in his pocket after that, and he never drank anything that anybody else ever handed him, except Pa.

The bearded older hunter wearing all black went into the barn to have a little "talk" with Pa. When he came back out his clothes had dark stains on them and Gabe caught the scent of Pa's blood on him. He didn't really know how he felt about Pa dying, either, so his mind went completely blank for a while.

Gabe watches the red haired lady cop from Hibbing drive off, and as soon as she's out of sight he feels Pa's big heavy hand drop down on his bare shoulder and squeeze. Gabriel knows he did good. Pa doesn't have to say a word.

The year he turns seventeen Gabe uses his face and body to lure in two people. After the first time his dreams are bad every night for a week. Afterwards he wishes he could stop, but he gets a thrill from it, so he can't.

The only reason Gabriel didn't kill Lee the second time Lee touched him down there was because Gabe knew Pa would be pissed off if he did, so he didn't.

Gabe expected the hunters to shoot him, at the very least, leave him with what was left of the family. Instead they pushed him into the back seat of this big shiny black car and drove off with him before the cops showed up.

During the night Gabriel always wakes up shaking, feeling like he's lost something precious but he doesn't know exactly what, and he wouldn't even know where to begin if he started looking for it.

The first time he fell asleep in the tub he woke up to find that Missy had climbed in with him. She still had her clothes on, but Gabe nearly killed himself trying to get away from her. When she laughed it sounded like she was screaming.

Gabriel killed the first time he actively participated in a hunt because the guy they were hunting jumped him from behind and tried to bash his head in with a rock.

By the end of his first year of hunting at age nine Gabe's gotten pretty good at tracking. He moves silently through the woods like a natural born predator, and from then on he nearly always lets Lee or Jerry make the kill because frankly, he doesn't need any more fucking grief from them.

"Please, don't let them do that to me," the black woman says, and she's broken, pleading. Gabriel gently strokes the side of her smooth brown face with his hand, and when her eyes close as the kiss deepens he doesn't hesitate with the knife, even when he hears Jerry walk up behind them.

When the hunters came for the family there was this older hunter, bearded dude wearing a baseball cap and a sleeveless vest, with this big black and tan dog. Gabriel started to shoot the dog, but he couldn't, so he took a shot at the old man instead, and he got him in the arm before the old guy hit him in the face with the butt of his rifle.

Gabe's second kill during a hunt was intentional. It was a skinny little blonde guy who tried to pretend he was Gabriel's long lost buddy, and Gabe couldn't wait to get the phony bastard out in the woods and snap his neck like a twig.

Missy screamed and sobbed when the hunters handcuffed her to the porch railing. Gabe just stood there, head bowed, his hands cuffed behind his back, and it took him a while to realize that what he was feeling was relief.

"Damn kid's crazy," Lee says, shifting his feet, and he won't look Pa in the eye. "Ah know what's been going on," Pa says sternly, and Lee won't answer.

When he was twelve years old Gabriel found four stray kittens hidden by their mama out back in one of the abandoned cars. Missy found them too, and Gabe snapped the necks of the other three before she could get to them with her knife. Afterwards he felt so bad he felt frozen inside. He couldn't even cry.

"You be good, and do this," Jerry's eyes are hungry, vacant, "and I won't tell Pa what you did," and Gabriel doesn't say a word as he kneels down and Jerry unzips himself.

When he's older Gabe cleans up quite nicely when they go into town to pick someone to hunt. He wears clean, worn jeans and a work shirt, work boots and a pair of round glasses that have plain glass in the lenses.

Gabe knows he's seriously fucked up in the head, and sometimes he thinks that the only cure for what he's got is a bullet in the brain.

Lee thoughtfully rubs the dingy skin of his throat as he stares at Gabe, and Gabriel can hear him think, _you fucking freak_. Gabriel smirks, because Lee's too scared to lay a hand on him now.

Gabe's a natural born actor when he approaches people on the parking lot.

Even when Pa mixes deer or squirrel meat in with that _other_ white meat, Gabriel can still tell the difference.

"They left you by the side of the road like a piece of trash so we could find you," Missy says in a singsong voice. "If they really loved you, they wouldn't have dumped you in the first place," and even though Gabe knows the first part is a lie, he has to admit he secretly thinks the second part is true.

**_III. The Space Between_**

Gabe opens his eyes when he hears his name called. The black guy sitting by his bedside smiles, but the smile doesn't reach his eyes. Gabriel stares at him and sees cop, and doesn't say a word.

Old Yellow Eyes can't understand why the light inside the boy hasn't darkened, even with everything else he's seen and done.

That freakishly tall kid with the shaggy dark brown hair and the hazel eyes and that big dark burly man visit Gabe in the hospital every day. The kid always looks sad, and the man always calls Gabriel by a name he doesn't recognize and never answers to.

He backs up against the side of the Impala when Missouri comes out and stands on her porch. When she looks at him with those sorrowful brown eyes of hers she can see everything he ever did, and she makes him so nervous his insides cramp up.

Gabe just sits there slumped over in the chair, handcuffed, staring blankly into space, while the doctor in white and the bearded hunter in black talk about him. He hears words like "Post Traumatic Stress", "Attachment Disorder", "catatonia", and "possible brain damage" and words don't mean anything to him anymore.

Bobby Singer's Auto Yard reminded him so much of the back yard in the Bender compound that Gabriel went out back searching for that black Mustang. He never found it.

The day he was released from the hospital he stepped out into the bright spring air next to the shaggy haired kid, and the first thing Gabriel thought was that he didn't deserve sunshine or freedom anything else that good and pure.

The first time they put him in that straitjacket it felt good somehow, so he fought the men in white again and they shot him full of drugs, and strapped him down to the bed, and that wasn't so bad either, since it shut up those voices in his head and the shadows stopped screaming.

Gabriel sits there in the grass cross-legged, repeats his new name to himself over and over again, until it doesn't sound so strange to him.

The thought of running away never even occurs to him.

"Did I…hurt somebody in your family?" he asks, and the big man looks sad and shakes his head.

That shaggy kid with the hazel eyes is so tall he's like Sasquatch, and despite the drug-induced haze Gabriel sometimes wonders how it would have been to hunt him.

One day, a day like all the other endless days and nights Gabe can barely remember, the kid with the dark shaggy hair and those sad hazel eyes is sitting by his bedside when Gabe wakes up. Gabriel looks at him sleepily and murmurs, "Sammy."

They tell him his name is Dean Michael Winchester, and he doesn't believe it.

"We never gave you permission to speak with Dean, Agent Hendrickson," the kid says fiercely, looming over him, and when the black guy just shrugs and leaves, Gabriel doesn't know what to think.

He always feels like screaming when he sees her up above his head like that, all pale and bloody, so one night he finally does, and he screams so loud he loses his voice.

The first month after he gets out of the hospital he waits for the other shoe to drop. Waits for the kid and the big dark guy to drop that sharing and caring act of theirs, tie him to a chair, and start working on him with knives and pliers. They never do, and for some reason that makes him even more nervous.

The first time Gabriel sees Dad under the hood of the Impala he goes over helps him replace the transmission. Back in Hibbing Gabriel wanted to make repairs on that old damn truck that growled, but Lee wouldn't let him.

Turns out the other older hunter's name is Bobby Singer, and he looks like he's about to bust out laughing when Gabriel stammers out an apology for shooting him in the arm that day.

Whenever he looks at people he wonders exactly what it would take to bring them down.

**_IV. Dean, Fractured_**

He calls the shaggy Sasquatch kid "Sam", and the dark haired older guy "Dad." He slips up one day and calls him "Pa" and he flinches when he thinks the dude's gonna hit him for that. Dad never does.

Dean smells blood in his dreams, and he can't move as the shadow kneels over him. He wakes up, hears someone screaming, smells faint spicy aftershave and Dad's holding onto him for dear life, telling Dean over and over again that it's okay, that he's safe.

He goes for long walks while they stay at the farmhouse, and sometimes Sam follows him. Dean could swear Missy is following too so after the second time he thinks he sees her he carries a small silver knife in his boot, just to be sure.

He's down to one pill a day (for the fucking "anxiety disorder") but it makes him feel dull and spaces him out, so he doesn't tell John or Sam that he just stops taking it cold turkey.

One night, when neither one of them can sleep, Sam asks him if he can remember anything of his life before the Benders took him, and Dean's heart tightens in his chest at the expression on Sam's face when Dean tells him what little he _does_ remember.

Six months into his new life Dean has four good credit cards and six drivers' licenses in six different states.

Dean sits there staring at the faded photos in the cigar box and it's like looking at someone else's life.

If the vengeful spirit of one of his victims ever does come looking for him, Dean's already decided he's not going to fight it. He did everything they said he did, and then some, and he can't pretend he was someone else when he did it. He just can't.

Sam feels guilty about that night, and that's something Dean just doesn't get.

The first time they ate out Dean bit into an undercooked chicken drumstick. He spat the rubbery flesh back out onto his plate, looked at the dark bloody bone in his hand, and the next thing he knew he was on his knees in that dingy bathroom, kneeling in front of the porcelain throne puking his guts out.

Sam tells Dean about his life on the road with Dad, and while Sam sounds blasé about it, Dean envies him; Sam and Dad have been nearly everywhere except Puerto Rico and Alaska. Hibbing county and the Bender compound were Dean's whole world for nearly twenty years.

After the very first time Dean drove the Impala he ran his hands over her sleek black surface so lovingly Sam grinned like an idiot and said he was going to leave the two of them alone for some quality time together.

The first time Dad explained that they "hunt things" Dean feels cold inside and thinks to himself, _Not again._

It's like that battered brown leather jacket is calling to him, so he goes over and slips it on, flips the collar up just right, and damn, it's a perfect fit.

He takes long walks at first, then when he decides to run Dean loses himself in the way his body feels when it's in motion.

Despite the fact that he's taller and heavier, Sam loses every sparring match with Dean after the first three times. Sam always sees something dark in his brother's eyes when they spar, but Dean won't let him in, won't tell him what he's thinking or how he's feeling.

When they're on the road and Dean's curled up on the back bench asleep the rumble of the girl's engine soothes him like a lullaby.

Dad stands there smiling, every bit the proud papa, when Dean pulls that silver plated Colt 1911 and bulleyes all ten of those glass bottles sitting on the fence at Bobby Singer's place.

"It bothers him, you know," Sam says slowly, "always did bother him that he couldn't find you sooner."

If he's the older brother then_ he_ should be the taller one, not the other way around.

Dean doesn't really understand _why_, but he agrees to wear the protection amulet Dad gives him, and even swears on a Bible _never ever_ to take the damned thing off.

The first time they spar, Sam pins him three times in a row. The last time Sam pins him face down and when Dean's mind flashes back to Lee on top of him in the barn, pushing him face down in the hay so hard he can't breathe, Dean lashes out backwards with his elbow and nearly breaks Sam's nose.

Crowds bother him. Having all those people around him makes his skin tingle, because there are way too many threats, in every direction, and all it takes is just one careless moment…

Sam sees the faint old scars that Pa Bender put on his back with the belt. Dean bites back a moan when his brother gently touches him. "Dean, what the hell did they do to you?" Sam says softly, and Dean's throat closes up. He shakes his head and can't answer.

**_V. Dean, Reconstructed_**

Dean always thought that whoever said "What doesn't kill me makes me stronger" is full of shit. Duh. Obvious much?

Two busted ribs and a broken arm later, Dean's still so doped up he only whimpers, instead of screaming out like Gordon wants him to when Gordon pushes into him from behind.

Pa Bender's female cousin still looks the fucking same as she did after all those years, and the first time Dean sees her again he actually freezes, terrified that she'll recognize him and put him in the trunk of her car again.

The yellow eyed dude called in a favor, so that FBI fingerprint evidence in the Benders case disappeared like a snowball in Hell. Talk about poetic irony.

Dean sometimes stares at himself in the rearview mirror of the Impala, a plate glass window, any large reflective surface. Sam thinks he's being vain, but Dean wonders why all the shit he's seen and done doesn't show up on his face, like Dorian Gray.

Whenever they go on a hunt and there are kids involved that bothers Dean the most.

He stops by the Roadhouse every once in a while to see Ellen, usually around closing time, and Dean doesn't take offense when she clutches at his broad shoulders and calls him "Bill" as he rocks into her, slow and deep.

"It's all right, Dean," Gordon says. "Don't worry about it. I'm going to take my time with you, just like I would've done with my sister."

"Murder. Cannibalism. Obstruction of justice. And that's just for starters. And I think you're good for it. I just have to prove it, Ga-bri-el," Hendrickson says, stretching out the syllables in the name. Dean smiles tightly and tells him he's got the wrong bastard.

"Pretty meat," the succubus purrs as she licks Dean's neck. "So sweet. Light and dark, all in one," and for a moment, just a moment, he thinks about dropping the knife and letting her take him.

"They've got Dad," Sam whispers softly, despite his broken jaw, and he doesn't even have to say who "they" are. Dean already knows.

Lying to people and turning on the charm still comes naturally to Dean, but he's relieved that from now on nobody's going to get hurt or eaten behind it.

"The bitch was running from me," Gordon says evenly. "She didn't want to be a part of our family, so she had to go. I had a chance to save our family's honor and you took that from me, Dean. Or should I call you Gabriel?"

"Dean Winchester," and this time Dean recognizes the voice _before_ he looks up. Hendrickson slides into the booth without being asked, snags a French fry from Dean's plate and eats it, and Dean has to stop himself from stabbing the dude in the hand with his fork.

Dean didn't mean for it to happen, but his lips brushed up against Ellen's and her arms slid around his shoulders and they held onto each other for dear life.

_You're fooling yourself, kid,_ the yellow eyed man said. _Think you can just forget all those things you've done, the people you hurt and killed? You're mine, all mine, now and forever. Freaks like you don't get to go to heaven, don't you know that?_

Eddie the bartender told the cops later on that he just thought they were two gay guys or something. The way the black guy was holding onto that drunken pretty white boy with the full lips, what _else_ was he gonna think?

The first time he and Sam went to the library to do research Dean decided that if he survived his first fugly hunt he was gonna come back and spend the whole day wandering from department to department, reading as many damn books as he wanted. So he did.

By the time Bobby and the others show up, Dean's unconscious, bruised and bloody, lying in a circle of scorched earth. Sam stays with his brother while Ellen, Caleb and some of the other hunters search the surrounding area for John and the others.

"God forgives you, Dean," Pastor Jim says, "now you have to forgive yourself," and Dean shakes his head, looks away and thinks, _Padre, that's not even an option._

The first letter postmarked Palo Alto, California, comes a few days later and that lettering isn't red ink, it's John's blood.

Before they go out hunting Dad makes Dean read through his journal, cover to cover.

Sometimes he gets the urge to disappear, just for a while, just for a few hours. Dean never goes far and sometimes is content to just drive the Impala down a country road, pull over to the side, get out and just sit there on the hood for a while.

"I can't believe you didn't fight him," Sam says angrily. "What, you were just gonna let him kill you, Dean?" and Dean just lowers his head and stares at the floor.

"I don't have any money on me, boy," Pa's cousin snarls when she turns to face him in the alley. "So if you're gonna rob me you'll be wasting your time." Dean looks at her, remembers pain and loss and screaming and his grin is wicked sharp. "That's not what this is about, bitch."

The little old widow that they save from that freaky ass poltergeist hugs John, hugs Sammy, and she hugs Dean too, but she grabs Dean's ass when she hugs _him_. John and Sam laugh like hell all the way back to the Impala while Dean grumbles and rubs his sore behind. Grabby handed old bitch had a strong grip.

Gordon kicks him in the side, puts him down on his knees as soon as the door closes. The edge of the knife Gordon holds against his throat is razor sharp. Dean doesn't argue, and he doesn't struggle, he just closes his eyes and waits.

"Catch us if you can, Deanie, old boy. We're not gonna kill Daddy. He's gonna be with us for a long time." The Demon grins as he spreads John's arms wide. "First we're gonna give _you_ something to remember us by."

When Dad sits him down and tells him what happened to Mom, Dean feels weird and spaced out in his head the rest of the day.

Dean goes out hunting with Caleb several times. They track a bobcat and a cougar, just for practice, and when they come across a were-panther they nail _that_ sumbitch's ass quick, fast, and in a hurry.

Pa's cousin can't handle a full grown man, only little boys (what, no duct tape _this_ time, bitch? Dean thinks to himself) and later on the tarp he wrapped around her leaked a little so he took the Impala to a self-service car wash and cleaned up the stains and vacuumed the trunk out himself.

The black dog bares its teeth at Dean, and Dean bares his and snarls right back.

After the initial shock passes, he's really not that surprised to find out there are real demons in the world; he just spent nearly twenty years with a family of human ones.

John shoots as soon as Gordon opens the door and slashes at him with the Bowie knife. John walks away; Gordon doesn't.

Dean plays the radio loud when he drives. He discovers heavy metal on the radio, and it's no question from then on: Page and Bonham are fucking _gods _(although he does think sometimes that Dave Matthews is good too – but he'd never admit _that_ to Sam).

Dean can usually pick the average lock in less than twelve seconds flat; his time hotwiring cars is faster than that.

Sam's got a lot of book sense; he's probably the smartest person Dean knows, next to Dad, and Dean wondered why Sam never went to college and shows no interest in going.

He recognizes most of the spirits standing around him in the circle as the ones he helped hunt when he was a Bender. The others look like the people in the Polaroids Pa would put up on the wall. John stands there, all yellow-eyed and grinning. Dean sinks to his knees in the middle of the circle but they don't close in on him, not yet.

Sam teaches him Latin, and Dean's still a little surprised that it comes naturally to him.

He actually gets a rush from hunting down and killing the damned things, but he won't allow himself to think about what that really says about his mental state or his character.

"Just…just let him go." Dean will fucking plead if he has to. "You got me. What the hell do you need him for?" And the Demon inside Dad laughs out loud.

Libraries, bars, and churches are the three things Dean always looks for when he's driving and they're out on the road.

Sam curses the day his beloved laptop dies. Dean takes the thing apart and fiddles around with it, and later on in the day when he hands it back to Sam and it's working Dean really enjoys seeing that amazed, grateful look on Sam's face.

Dean does research on protection symbols, and all that week he uses holy water and his fingers and draws protection sigils on Sam and John's clothing.

Dean liked Caleb right away; Pastor Jim was a little more intimidating and Dean could feel himself back up a little.

Two plainsclothes FBI agents come into the laundromat and sit around pretending to read magazines as Dean does the laundry. After he loads the clean clothes up in the Impala's back bench Dean strolls over and asks the agents how Special Agent Hendrickson is doing these days.

Dad's eyes gleam all yellow and murky, and that smile on his face is bright and terrible as he draws back his foot and kicks Dean in the ribs.

One morning Dean shows up looking lost and young and vulnerable on Pastor Jim's doorstep in Blue Earth and Dean's confession takes the better part of the day, into night.

"Never should have let me live," Dean snarls to the yellow eyed shadow in his dreams. "Biggest damn mistake_ you'll_ ever make."

"Sammy, you don't have to come with me. I can do this by myself," Dean says, and Sam shrugs, looks at him like _he's_ insane. "Well, then, we got work to do," and Dean slams the Impala's trunk shut.


	2. The Broken Road

_**A/N #1:**_ I want to thank everyone who reviewed the first chapter and inquired if I was going to expand this, everyone who put this story on their favorites list, and everyone who even lurked. The chapter title is taken from the Rascal Flats song, _God Bless the Broken Road (That Led Me Straight to You)._

_**A/N #2:**_ As always, it's non-linear. Sorry. That Gabriel/Dean kid insisted on it. Pa Bender's speech in part two was taken from the episode and changed slightly to fit the story.

_**Warnings:**_ Cursing, violence, het m/m sex, weird imagery

**_Disclaimer:_** I don't own Supernatural. This is for entertainment only, not for profit.

_**Pairings in the 'verse:**_ Dean/Lee Bender; Dean/Jerry/Bender; Dean/Missy Bender; Dean/OC, Dean/Ellen; Dean/Azazel/John

* * *

**_Part 2 - The Broken Road _**

**_I. Miss My Boys. Wish You Were Here_**

"They're gonna bleed 'im dry," Sam mutters softly as he stares at the wall. Dean turns away, frowning, as his vision blurs and the headache settles in deeper behind his eyes. Damn things are comin' back, just as strong as ever, and dry-swallowing aspirin doesn't seem to help.

The letters scrawled on the wall in the vacant house are a foot high, in block letters and maroon red:

**UH OH. TOO SLOW. TRY AGAIN, BOYS.**

They shag ass on the road five times in two weeks, crossing the country in response to post cards inked in John's blood.

Dean has no intention of keeping it but he thanks Bobby anyway for the anti-possession charm. He slips it into his jeans until he can decide what to do with the damned thing.

During what little down time they have between trips Dean runs and trains so hard it almost seems that he's trying to punish himself. Sam joins him out there, if only to slow him down so his idiot older brother won't hurt himself.

Dean goes over, licks his fingers, digs it into the wall hard enough to smear the damn red stuff around, then sucks the dark maroon tips of his fingers, hard. He gathers the saliva in his mouth and makes a face as he spits it out on the floor.

"Answer me when I'm talkin' to you, Gabriel!" Pa's voice is like the crack of a leather strap against Dean's bare skin. Dean wakes up with a start and just lies there staring into the darkness, breathing heavily for a while.

Afterwards they sit in the Impala, staring at the house, and despite the late summer heat Dean feels a chill in the air. "This isn't workin'," he says out loud, more to himself than to Sam. "We gotta make _them_ come to _us_."

"I don't need _you_ to tell me what the right thing to do is," Dean growls roughly and Missouri leaves just as quickly as she came.

"It's paint, dude," Dean grits out as he spits again. He scrubs his hand against the side of his jeans. "Red paint. _Not_ blood."

"D-doesn't m-matter…you sumbitch…" John stutters, and he can tell by the look on the postal clerk's face that he's said it out loud. "I got 'im back. I g-got my b-boy back…"

Hendrickson smiles and taps the witness sketch with his finger. "Looks just like Dean, doesn't it? He's younger, and his hair is longer. Those round glasses are supposed to throw us off, but I'd say this is close enough for government work."

It's so damn fuckin' funny Dean forgot to laugh. If they had come just for _him_, he would have gone quietly, and he wouldn't even have _tried_ to put up a fight.

"_Do you know what your brat did while he was with the Benders, John?"_ The Demon whispers silkily. _"Can you imagine your pretty little green-eyed boy eating human flesh, and liking the taste of it?"_

Ellen presses that wide silver washer ring into the palm of Dean's right hand and she closes his fingers around it. "You put this on, and you wear it," she says fiercely. "You wear it, and you remind yourself that you have people who love you, that you've got something to come back home to."

"Sam? Sammy?" Sam's actually shaking as he stares at the house, and he startles when Dean touches him gently on his arm.

…_don't struggle, sweetness. Only hurt worse if you do, _the yellow eyed shadow standing over his bed hisses, and despite himself, Dean whimpers. He's only a kid, for God's sake, and he doesn't understand any of this.

Pastor Jim insists on blessing the brothers before they leave Blue Earth again. Sam bows his head, and accepts it. Dean backs up, out of Pastor Jim's reach, his face carefully blank, and he shakes his head _no_, once.

"I was your Daddy for nearly twenty years, boy. Only Daddy you ever knew." Pa leans forward and their eyes lock. Dean can smell the blood on him, salty and dark.

"Only one that was there for you _all the time_. What, that day you couldn't even fight for your family?"

Sometimes Dean looks at the houses, especially the ones with kids playing in the front yards, and he wonders about What Might Have Been.

Ellen just stares at Dean for a moment, and then she rests her chin on his bare shoulder. "Giving yourself to these bastards _isn't_ going to make things right," and Dean wonders exactly _when_ he became That. Fucking. Obvious.

He dreams about John more often, remembers stuff from his childhood he thought he'd forgotten. Dad playing ball with him out in the backyard, Dad dancing in the kitchen with Mom, Dad hugging him, Dad laughing, and the urge to slaughter _all_ the sumbitches that took John becomes even stronger.

"Yeah, I remember him," the postal clerk says after Dean flashes that fake FBI badge (Special Agent Peter Townsend) at her and shows her John's picture. She shudders. "Weird dude. Argued with himself the whole time he was in the store. Thought he was drunk or high or something."

Out of the corner of his eye Dean sees the old wrinkled guy in the suit standing on the street in front of the house. Same sunken red eyes, same creepy smile, and the sumbitch sees him looking and even waves at him. Fourth time Dean's seen the bastard in two weeks.

Dean doesn't want to wake Mommy or Daddy or Sammy, 'cause he knows somethin' bad'll happen to them if they _do_ wake up, so he stops and forces himself to lie still and be quiet, and somethin' dark and cold slips in past his skin into his bones, making him jerk sideways…

Looking after Sam feels natural to Dean, it feels _right_, even though he hasn't done it in twenty years.

There are a few supernatural critters Dean would love to see, just to _watch_, not hunt down and kill, and the Phoenix is one of them, for obvious reasons.

"They call it Stockholm Syndrome, Dean," Sam's voice is low, full of concern, and for some reason that makes Dean uneasy. "You identified with the Benders. They were the only family you knew, so you stayed with them. Missouri means well, but she's full of it sometimes. I'm _not_ stayin' home while you get Dad back."

He likes to fool himself by thinking that going after John is a rescue mission, not search and destroy too. If anything happens to John _and_ Sam, though, _all_ bets are off…

Sam holds the aspirin bottle in his hand and rattles it to get Dean's attention, and they both know Dean's full of shit as the lie rolls oh so smoothly out of his mouth: "No big deal, dude. I take 'em once in a while, that's all."

Dean goes out some nights and sits cross-legged on the ground with his head resting against one of the Impala's side door panels. He doesn't remember how or when his face gets wet, and he blames _that_ on the cool night air.

_Mom,_ Dean whispers softly as he reaches up to her. His hands shake and he never can quite touch her but that doesn't stop him from trying, each and every damn time.

Sam always wakes up when ever he hears Dean moan in his sleep, and he doesn't go back to sleep until Dean settles down again. Dean thinks that Sam sleeps straight through most nights, and Sam doesn't let him know otherwise.

Dean can't imagine living a _normal_ life, or a _long_ one.

On the way back Sam calls Bobby, and Bobby tells them about the latest postcard, from Stull, Kansas, written in John's blood, same as always:

**_MISS MY BOYS. WISH YOU WERE HERE._**

"I'm gettin' tired of these jackasses playin' us," Dean growls softly as Sam flips his cell closed. They're two hours out from Stull, so that's where they're headed, but God help the sumbitches when they get there.

The shaggy haired taller one looks innocent and harmless enough as they walk into the Main Street Bar 'N' Grill in Stull, but he's a wolf cub in sheep's clothing. When Missy sees Gabriel, leather clad, all gunslingers' strut and hooded green eyes, pretending to be Dean, she knows she's in the right place.

**_II. Sunlight and Shadows_**

_Don't do it, Dean. Don't. Son, you're better than that. _

_Lucky son of a bitch, _the Demon hisses, and John smirks grimly as it sends him plunging down into total darkness.

When they back off and turn to run Dean lets them go and he doesn't even know _why_.

The address in Stull turns out to be a vacant lot, no house, not even a billboard, which is a relief in a way, because neither brother wants to see another message written in red, for tonight, at least.

In his mind's eye Dean hears the doors to the cages clang open heavily.

"Damn punk kid, you fuckin' cheated," the biker snarls, and as he steps forward with the pool cue raised in his hands the dude sees the shadows in Dean's eyes and it suddenly dawns on him that somethin's not quite right with this sumbitch.

**_It's kinda like our tradition passed down, father to son._**

"Gabriel, you stay b'side me," Pa says as he takes the rifle down. "'bout time you went out huntin' with us, boy. Wanna show ya how it's done."

_Tell you what, John, I'll let you talk to the boy a little,_ the Demon hisses.

**_I've hunted all my life, just like my father and his before him, Pa whispers._**

Dean gets up slowly, his eyes seemingly half-drowsy from lack of sleep and the beer he's drunk. He gives them all barely a glance, but he tracks them in that huge mirrored wall behind the bar as he makes his way towards the door.

**_I've hunted deer, and bear. I even got a cougar once._**

Dean thanks whatever gods might be listening that Sam calls it a night first, and heads back to the motel down the street. Dean scents blood in the night air, and he sits there and lanquidly nurses his second beer of the evening, makes them focus on _him_, not Sam.

_We'll see which daddy Deano listens to…_

The hair on the back of Dean's neck rises up slightly. Chairs scrape against the worn hardwood floor as the biker and his friends get up and follow him out.

**_But the best hunt is human._**

Lee and Jerry run through the trees behind Business Suit. They laugh, whoop, and howl like wolves. Gabe quietly hunkers down in the brush with Pa and waits.

"You playin' hard to get, pretty? I like that," one of the men laughs.

The dude in the gray business suit comes crashing through the underbrush, muttering _Oh God, Oh God, please God,_ over and over again, and Gabriel's pretty sure God has absolutely nothing to do with what's going on.

Three walking down the sidewalk behind him, a rolling roadblock, and he's not surprised when the other three appear out of the alley in front of him. They spread out around him, and Dean stops, sways a little on his feet.

**_We give him a weapon, give him a fighting chance._**

Business Suit has even forgotten that he's got that ax in his hands. Pa chuckles and tracks him with the rifle. "You don't wanna end this too quick, Gabriel. No fun that way." Pa whispers. "You let 'em come to you."

The middle one directly behind him moves first, and Dean spins around to meet him. Dude's big, like Lee was, and as Dean punches him in the face its déjà fucking vu all over again as his fist ghosts beneath the guy's skin and the bastard turns deathly pale and lets out a strangled yelp.

**_Of course, only one or two a year, never enough to bring the law down. _**

Business Suit runs right into the trip wire Jerry set up earlier and goes sprawling, flat on his face. The ax goes sliding away into the underbrush. Pa moves then, mutters, "Come on, boy, let's go. Don't wanna be left out, do ya?" and Gabriel moves with him.

They swarm him then, try to pin his arms to his sides, and Dean pivots, head butts, punches, lashes out viciously with his arms, legs, elbows ---

**_Holdin' their life in your hands…_**

Pa, Lee and Jerry are all over Business Suit, slashing at him, clubbing him, and Gabriel stands there twitching slightly each time he hears the dull heavy thud of metal against flesh, the brittle crack of bone breaking.

…**_seein' the fear in their eyes just before they go dark…_**

Business Suit stares upward, his face streaked with blood in the moonlight as Pa turns towards Gabe, glares at him, and Gabriel shies away as Pa hands him the bloody rifle

The skin around John's eyes crinkles as he gazes at his prodigal eldest son.

--- hot breath on the back of his neck, strong body odor, cheap booze and beer, Dean feels heavy weight on his back, his shoulders, he can't breathe and he lets himself go, he welcomes it –

The biker in the leather vest is on his hands and knees now, his brown eyes bloodshot, wide with fear and disbelief…

…**_makes you feel powerful alive, don't it, boy?_**

and each time Dean touches them his skin tingles as he pulls _something_ out of them, and he gets strong, they grow weak…

They finally realize that the whole fuckin' thing has gone south, he's a freak, he fights like a fucking demon or somethin', doesn't say a word, not even a grunt or growl –

_These bastards are stupid,_ John rumbles softly, _but they're still human, son. All I care about is that you're safe, you're back where you belong, with our family, with Sam._

"D-Dad?" Dean stops, startled, and the urge to kill drains out of him, all at once.

The bikers run, and that pretty, green eyed freak just stands there, blinking.

_Doesn't matter, John, doesn't matter,_ the Demon hisses. _He's **still** mine. You're here with me, and he's mine, all mine._

"Come on, be nice," Lee whispers. He kisses the back of Gabriel's neck and Gabe doesn't even flinch. "Just be nice and I won't hurt you much."

Images are all jumbled together though the fog in his brain, but John remembers the first time he and Bobby did recon on the Bender place, remembers the way his breath caught in his throat at the sight of a tall, gorgeous green-eyed kid, no, a young _man_, his hair bleached blond from the sun, coming out of the barn at the Benders' place, all dirty and disheveled. _Dean,_ John thought._ He has his mother's eyes and mouth._

Yellow eyes in the darkness as soon as his head hits the pillow back at the motel and Dean shudders as the shadow puts its arms around him, draws him close.

_My boy_, the Demon whispers, and it mouths the taut line of Dean's neck. _My beautiful, beautiful boy…_

Highway traffic slows down to a crawl as they pass the crash site, and Dean sees the tall wrinkled dude in the dark suit standing by the ambulance, surrounded by the spirits of the biker in the leather vest and his five friends from the night before.

The girl's tall and skinny, with a cap of short light brown hair; she's so clumsy stealing the two fruit pies and the carton of milk that the store clerk catches her and threatens to call "the popo" on her. Dean leans against the counter and shakes his head. _Amateurs._

Sam doesn't notice, and Dean doesn't say anything.

"Dude, listen," and Dean hopes the grin on his face at least _looks_ reassuring, "We've still got something they want. _Me_." Sam's pissy face says it all: he doesn't like the idea of Dean-as-bait one damn bit.

Well, hell, they can't just leave her there by the side of the road, so Sam's not surprised when Dean wordlessly opens the rear door of the Impala and bows like an English noble opening the coach door for m'lady.

Even though he won't admit it, a part of Dean wishes for death. Maybe, after he gets John back for Sam, even after all he's done, God (or whoever's in charge of this freak show) will let him be with his Mom.

"Don't sweat it, dude," Dean drawls. "Here. I'm payin' for it." He slaps a twenty down on the counter next to the six pack of beer and the two deli sandwiches he's buying and the clerk and the shoplifter-girl both look at him like_ he's_ the crazy one.

_You have no fuckin' clue_, Dean thinks to himself, but he doesn't say _that_ out loud.

One carton of milk, two fruit pies, a hamburger, medium fries and half a large sized soda later she finally comes up for air and introduces herself as both brothers stare warily at her from across the table (_Please don't eat me_, Sam thinks), and she tells Sam and Dean her name is Meg Masters.

From her seat on the back bench of the Impala Meg frowns up when Dean cranks up "Master of Puppets." Loud. Dean sees the look on her face in the rear view mirror and he smirks at her. "Driver picks the music. Shotgun shuts his cakehole. And back seat drivers, sweetheart, don't have _anything _comin'."

**_III. Persons of Interest_**

"You hurt my brother," Dean says simply, "and I'll kill you."

Hendrickson frowns. "Convenience store clerk murdered in Stull, Kansas," Agent Reidy shrugs. "Whoever did it twisted the guy's head and neck all the way around facing backwards. Your boy does weird and crazy. It may not be his style, but he was caught on tape in the store hours before it happened. It's worth a look-see, Vic."

Dean slams into the wall at an awkward angle, and when he falls heavily to the ground everything goes grey around the edges.

Sometimes Dean wishes that the Benders had just gone ahead and killed him; he figures John and Sam would have grieved but they would've moved on eventually.

Max's mother has so many knives stuck in her that she looks like a pincushion, but it's the butcher knife stuck in her eye that makes Dean's own right eye twinge painfully.

As they cross the state line into Michigan, Meg talks the whole time, about her family (_fucked up_), her ex-boyfriend (_no-account SOB_), and her current boyfriend (_eternal soul-mate_) among other things, and it's so damned normal and ordinary and pleasant that Dean pulls the cassette out of the player and "forgets" to put another one in just so he and Sam can listen to her.

Dean gets a funny vibe when he meets Max Miller and his parents; they're way too Stepford, but the parents smile blankly and Max thanks Sam and Dean for making sure that Meg got there safely.

Despite himself, Dean flinches when he touches Sam. Nothing happens, and they gotta get moving, because the neighbors heard the noise and more than likely have called the cops.

"He's not the same as he was, John," Missouri picked her words carefully as John stared at her, scowling. "He's a Bender now, not a Winchester, in more ways than one, and you might not be able to change him back."

Max Miller doesn't look anything like what Dean expected: tall, thin, nervous and twitchy; Dean would have figured Sam to be more Meg's type.

Hendrickson watches the tape over and over again, and after the sixteenth run-through decides it's a total waste of his time. The murder occurred in the blind spot directly underneath the cameras.

The second time Dean sets foot inside the Miller house the place smells like a slaughterhouse.

The old wrinkled dude's a reaper, probably The Reaper (as in _Grim? Duh?_ Dean thinks) and he has to stop himself from lowering his pistol to his side and stepping towards it instead.

Max' eyes are watery, and he looks like he's on the verge of tears. "At least they didn't beat you," he tells Dean. "They took you in, gave you a home," and Dean snarks, "Well, geez, I am_ so_ fuckin' lucky then, aren't I?"

She lifts him up effortlessly with one hand and her smile is bright and cheerful as she pokes at his forehead with one long fingernail. "I can help you let that bad stuff out." "Missy," Dean breathes, and she nods.

That bloody pile of rags and torn flesh on the floor is what's left of Max' Dad, and the other pile is the brother-in-law.

He slips the gun back into his waistband, and stares at his hands, frowning, but he doesn't have time for that emo shit right now, so _get your ass in gear, Dean, move it,_ he thinks to himself, _right the hell NOW_.

Dean dreams of dying at least once a week. It's always violent and it's always bloody, but he never screams out when he wakes up.

_It would have been better if: I had died in the trunk of that car. It would have been better if: Dad and Sam had never found me_. Dean's mind chases _It would have been better_ around and around like a terrier chasing a rat.

"But it's your gift. The gift the yellow eyed one gave you," the reaper says.

New dream, different one this time, and he tugs his wrists against the leather straps holding him down, and the man in white smiles a little. "Hello, Gabriel. I'm Doctor Campbell. Do you remember who I am?" and the dude frowns a little when Dean looks at him and slurs, "Tha's not m'name."

Behind him something pale, wrinkled and dark moves just inside the outer edge of his vision, and Dean stands up, turns, reaches into his back waistband pulling and aiming his pistol in one smooth motion.

Meg/Missy leans in close and licks the side of Dean's face. "Max is gonna spend a little quality time with Sam, Gabriel. Don't let them use you anymore. We can go anywhere, do anything in the world. Nobody to tell us what to do, or when to do it. We can be free, you, me and Max, and all the other special children."

Dean doesn't let go until Max stops breathing.

"I won't let you take my brother," Dean rumbles, and the old wrinkled dude smiles as Dean puts himself squarely in front of Sam and raises his pistol in a two handed grip.

Two hours after dropping Meg off they've crossed the state line and Sam's cell phone goes off. Sam goes pale after he puts it to his ear, and when he blurts out "Meg?" Dean feels a pit form in his stomach as he pulls the Impala over to the side of the road.

"I've come to express our appreciation," the old wrinkled dude says, and he purses his lips when Dean frowns. "You help us in the eternal harvest, my boy. You've sent many a soul to us and we thank you for that."

Sam's on his hands and knees, pale and gagging, by the time Dean breaks into the room. Less than half a heartbeat later Dean has Max by the throat and he feels that peculiar spark go all through him as his fingers ghost underneath Max' skin.

The silver flask is still there in his pocket, and Meg/Missy hisses, backs away as Dean hits her full in the face with the holy water. Her body's still steaming as she turns and crashes through the kitchen window.

_Why won't you bastards leave me the hell alone,_ Dean thinks, but he won't say it out loud 'cause it sounds too pathetic, too…whiny. He blinks and the old guy's gone.

"After this is over…maybe...maybe…it would be a good idea if you and Dad stayed away from me for a while…you know, separate hunts…" Dean's voice trails off when he sees that pissy look on Sam's face.

Sirens wailing in the distance, Sam's still disoriented, wobbly on his legs as a newborn colt, and Dean has to hustle. He loads Sam in, takes the wheel, and guns the Impala away from the curb and around the corner moments before several police cars pull up in front of the Miller house.

The crime scene photos from Michigan are among the worst Henrickson has ever seen, but the fingerprint evidence makes him believe there is a God after all: Dean Winchester's smudged fingerprints lifted from a doorknob in the Miller house.


	3. Free And Easy Down the Road I Go

_**A/N:**_ The chapter title is taken from Dierks Bentley's song, _Free an' Easy (Down the Road I Go)_.

_**Spoilers:**_ Faith, The Benders, Everybody Loves a Clown (Ash)

_**Warnings:**_ cursing, cannibalism, m/m sex (dubious consent), underage sex (dubious consent), murder. Violence.

_**Pairings in the 'verse:**_ Dean/Lee Bender/Jerry Bender; Dean/Missy Bender; Dean/OC, Dean/Ellen; Dean/Azazel/John

**_Disclaimer:_** I don't own the boys. I'm just playin' with 'em for a while.

* * *

**_Part 3 - Free and Easy (Down The Road I Go)_**

**_I. True Lies_**

When they make it back to Bobby's three more credit cards are in the mail: one for John Bonham (Dean) one for Dave Matthews (Sam) and the third one is for Elroy McGillicuddy (John).

Missy always cries whenever Meg leaves; she feels incomplete when Meg's not circling around inside her skull.

Dean spends the next few days feeling jumpy and disoriented; he pointedly avoids being in the same room with Sam or anyone else for more than a few minutes at a time.

Bobby opens the leather-bound book carefully; it's old, dusty, and smells faintly of cinnamon and sage. "You gotta set up a housetrap." He turns the book around so the boys can look inside. "Friend of mine has a place that you could use." Sam frowns up and Dean eyes the book warily.

Missy remembers how Gabriel's green eyes filled with disgust when he looked at her and she wonders what she did to make him hate her so.

Main Street Bar 'N' Grill, Stull Kansas: The female bartender's name is Sandy, and Meg tries not to laugh as she makes Sandy's eyes widen in mock fear when Hendrickson shows her Dean's photo. "That's the guy. Those bikers came back just before we closed, all banged and beaten up. Said he promised to hunt 'em down and kill 'em all."

It was a damned lie, but Meg thought the last part was a nice touch.

Dean looks Sam right in the eyes and lies easily, effortlessly: "I know you're worried about me. I get it. I really do. I'm fine, Sammy. Just fine. Nothin's wrong with me."

After Reidy and Hendrickson leave Meg forces Sandy to slit her wrists with a broken beer bottle. She takes a long time to die but making her write Dean's initials in blood on the floor and the screaming fit the bar owner has when he finds her mutilated body is totally worth it.

When Sam's not around Dean does research on reapers, chosers of the slain, valkyrie. They're neither good nor evil, they just _are_, and that doesn't make Dean feel any better about the whole damn thing.

Hendrickson gets the file on Samuel Winchester and lets out a low whistle when he sees some of the medical reports: the kid has been in and out of the hospital for various serious injuries since age nine. John Winchester was suspected of child abuse on several occasions, but nothing was ever proven.

"Sick bitch," Lee laughs as he slaps Layla upside the head. Her knees buckle and he pulls her back up on her feet. "Brain cancer, huh? We're doin' you a favor, then."

**_II. Suicide by Fugly_**

_Come on, Johnny boy,_ the Demon purrs silkily. _Got somethin' special I want ya to see. A blast from Dean's past. _

Gabriel doesn't struggle much as Lee and Jerry tie his wrists to the hooks in the barn. Lee laughs. "Don't know why you'd even bother to try an' save these bitches. They're no kin to you, boy."

Dean's tempted to tell Sam about the reaper, but he decides to keep his mouth shut. How do you tell your newly found not so little brother that you might just be one of those things that your family hunts?

He's too slow pushing the sandwich through the bars of the cage, and Mrs. Rourke scratches the back of Gabe's hand with her long nails. "You're an animal, just like the rest of them," she hisses at him. "I hope you die soon, you bastard."

Sam still gets twitchy around ten forty one in the morning; it's when they came and took Dad.

"We clothed you. Fed you. Took you in, treated you like one of the family, and _this_ is the thanks we get?" Everything goes white as Pa's fist slams into the side of Gabriel's face.

Dean does solo hunts while Sam and Bobby research improving the housetrap.

Dean feels better after he kills something, and when he does the headaches aren't that bad.

Bobby comes out holding two bottles of cold beer as Dean finishes changing that flat left front tire on the Impala. He offers one to Dean as he stands up. "Penny for your thoughts," the older man says, and Dean shrugs, nods his thanks as he takes the bottle. "You're in luck. My thoughts aren't worth even that much."

Dean knows Sam wants to talk about Dean's feelings when he looks up and sees _That Look_ on Sam's face. _Damn._

Sam's waiting up for him, extremely pissed off, when Dean staggers in one night from a hunt slimed with fugly ooze. Dean exaggerates the slight limp he got when he was chasing the damned thing in an effort to get Sam to back off. Doesn't work.

"Momma," Gabriel whispers softly to himself. Soft blonde hair and the face of an angel stops him dead in his tracks. He stands there, his heart pounding, mouth dry, staring like a deer caught in headlights, and he jumps when Lee walks by and shoves him. "Get a move on,_ freak_. Didn't you hear me talkin' to ya?"

Within the space of a week Dean kills a ghul and a barghast, cleans out a nest of goblins and stakes a bruja who was hiding out in a deserted barn by day and feeding on a nearby farm family at night.

Jerry grumbles something about "sloppy seconds" but he fidgets restlessly as he waits his turn. Gabriel bites back a scream as Lee enters him from behind.

"Your daddy…he had a pretty good idea what you went through when you were living with those people, Dean," Bobby says gravely. "We'd all heard the stories about them. John loves you. No matter what. That doesn't mean shit if you don't believe it yourself."

It's pretty damn stupid hunting without Sam but Dean does it anyway. He's heard that God watches out for babies and fools, but Dean's convinced the Dude Upstairs doesn't give a fuck about him one way or another.

"Why are you trying to ditch me, Dean?" Sam says sadly. Dean stares at the floor and can't even think of an answer.

He "forgets" to lock the cages, and "forgets" to lock the barn door. Layla mouths "Thank you" silently at him as Gabriel leaves the barn.

Mullet-Head guy's picture is in one of Ellen's photo albums, and it takes Dean a moment to realize that the skinny little blond dude was his second intentional kill on a hunt with the Benders.

Caleb sees the look on Dean's face and says softly, "I don't think you are. 'Cause if you _were_ an evil sumbitch, none of this shit would bother you in the first place."

"You can stop this," Mama whispers in his ear, as he lies there on his side in the hay, bloodied and bruised. "You can stop _all _of this. Just use the gift I gave you, Gabriel," and he can't understand why her eyes sometimes gleam yellow.

The next time Gabe sees Layla she and her mother are silent, bloody and dead.

Pa stares at Gabriel for a long silent moment and the weight of his stare lays on the boy like stone. "Don't kill 'im. Do whatever ya want with 'im," the old man says at last to Lee and Jerry, and Pa turns on his heel and walks out.

The woman is so grateful to be alive she hugs Dean tightly and he freezes as soon as she touches him. He stares at her blonde hair and all he can remember is laughter and pain and the taste of Lee and Jerry's come in his mouth.

The days and nights blur into a haze of pain and blood and sweat and bodies. Gabriel's on his knees again. Jerry yanks Gabe's head back by the hair and Pa walks into the barn just as Lee unzips himself. Everything stops.

During the abduction he remembers the heat and the darkness inside the trunk, but Dean doesn't remember the reaper smiling at him as it ran its fingers through his hair and whispered in his ear.

It's a complete fuck-up; there are too many of the bastards. Dean loses himself in the motion of slashing with the machete, and when he comes back to himself he's standing blood splattered in a circle of vamp heads and bodies.

"You can let my mother go, can't you?" Layla's pale and shaking, achingly beautiful. Gabriel pretends not to hear her at first. He doesn't say anything, and he hates himself for it.

Dean knows he's too late even as he kicks the basement door in. There were young kids in the vamp nest; they've turned already. His mind goes blank as he uses the machete again, and afterwards he sees that creepy old wrinkled dude standing in the corner staring at him.

"Pa…" Gabriel whispers brokenly. He's on his hands and knees at the old man's feet, clawing at Pa's dirty work boots with numb fingers. "….please…please…'m sorry…sorry...no more…please…no more…good boy…I'll be a good boy…"

"Such a fine harvest," the reaper says approvingly. It takes a step towards Dean and he raises the machete.

"Come on, dude," Ash says. "You can cut me a break, can't you?" _Not again. Never again,_ Gabriel thinks to himself. He can't wait to get this mullet-wearing bastard outside and wipe that shit-eating grin off his face.

During the next few days John tries to commit suicide several times.

"…m'not doing this for you. M'not," Dean whispers hoarsely, and the reaper smiles and shakes its head. "No need to punish yourself. It's who and what you are, child."

Ellen looks sad when he asks her about the dude with the mullet. Dean feels freezing cold inside as he tries to act casual. She says he was a friend of hers; his name is Ash. Went on a trip to visit his folks up in Minnesota a few years ago and never came back.

"Should have marked you," Pa says thoughtfully. "Should have marked that pretty face of your'n up so badly you woulda _never_ forgotten your place."

"I'll do it, Pa," Lee says, a little too quickly, and he shuts up when Pa glares at him.

Ten miles down the highway from the Roadhouse Dean pulls the Impala over on the shoulder and sits there, gripping the steering wheel, pale and shaking.

Gabriel doesn't remember Pa walking him out of the barn, doesn't remember stumbling up the stairs into the house. Missy helps him into the bathroom, strips off his torn jeans and helps him into the bathtub filled with warm water. Missy bathes him with a soft wet cloth and presses her lips to his swollen bruised mouth.

The black eyed girl in Missouri's dreams shows her _everything_ Dean did when he was a Bender. "You have to stop him before he does it all over again," Meg whispers. "I can help you with that."

Gabriel tosses and turns in his sleep that night. He sees long blonde hair and open staring dead eyes, and he whimpers, deep and low in his throat. "Mama, please, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry…"

Gabriel's forgotten how long they let him hang from those hooks. Years later Dean's body remembers. His broad shoulders and arms ache almost constantly from the suppressed memory, but he doesn't even remember why.

**_III. Saints and Sinners_**

"My brother didn't mean to hurt you," Sam says softly, and the thing inside Dean smiles slyly. "You really believe that, little boy?" This one is older, bitter, but somehow Sam can tell it's another female.

"Well, he's your father too," Dean tells Sam, and he says that he's sorry that John was taken because of him. Sam stares at Dean in disbelief.

Sam looks over just as Dean sits up in bed in one smooth motion, eyes blank and staring at first. Dean sways a little as he hugs himself, runs his hands up and down his arms.

"So what's the plan?" Special Agent Reidy says. Hendrickson's smile is bright, hard, and doesn't reach his eyes. "Divide and conquer. One freak brother against the other. Shake 'em up, see what happens."

"He's angry. Your sainted big brother has feet of clay," the spirit whispers. "He's mad because normal got snatched from him. Angry because of what happened to your family. He could have left, when he got bigger. He didn't, so he stayed with those freaks and decided to dish out some punishment to the rest of us."

Sometimes Sam has this look on his face like he really adores having Dean as a big brother; that look bothers the hell out of Dean, 'cause he's pretty sure that if Sam knew half the things he's done, the kid would look disgusted instead.

"I'm warm again," Dean laughs, despite the sudden drop in temperature in the room. He glances up at Sam and then casts his eyes at the floor, shyly. "Been so long since I've felt like that…"

After they get John back, Dean plans on getting as far away from Sam and John as he can, as fast as he can. Only problem with that is, he knows they'll only track him down again.

"Who – who am I speaking to?" Sam says hoarsely, and the spirit using Dean's body smiles sadly.

"My…my name is Layla," Dean says softly. "Layla Rourke." Dean sighs as he brings his knees up to his chest, puts his chin on his knees. "My mother and I were on the road, going to Roy LaGrange's place. We stopped at a truck stop outside Hibbing, Minnesota. We never made it."

Dean lets the dude from the bar push him down on the bed and it feels so damned good not to think…

Dean's body jerks sideways as the older spirit slips back inside, and his lips turn upwards in a smirk as she makes him look around the room. "You can't save this bastard. You put down salt lines, and that didn't stop us. We're coming back, little boy. Soon."

Hendrickson gingerly rubs the sore aching spot between his eyes. "I think we can add five counts of vehicular homicide to those charges, plus another count of suspicion of murder. Dean's been a busy boy."

Dean's eyes grow vacant, and he slumps bonelessly over onto his side. Sam dives over the bed at him, frantically reaching, feeling for a pulse, anything, but Dean's so damned still and pale Sam forgets to breathe.

Ellen brushes her lips against Dean's forehead, but he can't look her in the eyes for fear she'll see the truth there.

"Your dad'll be proud of you for doing such good work, Dean," Pastor Jim says earnestly. Dean's laugh is slightly mocking and more than a little hysterical.

They got in, despite the salt, despite everything that ever worked in the past, and Sam doesn't know what else to do. He cradles Dean's unconscious body and the only good thing about this whole sorry mess is the fact that Dean's still breathing.

During the next few nights Missouri dreams of killing Dean several different ways. She's not really a violent person, so poisoning him seems to be the most humane way to go.

"It's guilt, Sam," Bobby drawls when Dean's not around. "Dean's feeling guilty for what he did. That's why they were able to get in. That's how they can track you. Might be something we can use against 'em though. Let me get back to you on that one."


	4. Just Another Day In Paradise

**_A/N:_** Chapter title taken from the country western song by Phil Vassar of the same name.

* * *

**_Part 4 – Just Another Day in Paradise_**

**_I. Remote Control_**

They all die when he touches them -- Bobby, Ellen, Caleb, Pastor Jim, Sam and Dad -- and Dean's moaning, shaking, still trapped inside the dream. Dean tastes human flesh and blood in his mouth, sees Pa steaming those bones clean in that large metal pot. Sam tightens his grip, wraps his arms around his brother, and he doesn't even remember falling asleep holding Dean like that hours later.

_Don't open the door_, John pleads silently. _Damn it, don't._

"Missy likes you, Gabriel. She always has. She likes the way you look. The way you taste. You two practically grew up together." Missouri's eyes are pitch black in the dream, and Dean can only sit there and stare at her.

Gabriel's eyes glaze over as Pa puts down that big bowl of hot stew in front of him. Gabe knows _what_ it is, knows who it _was. _He can almost smell Layla's perfume coming from the bowl, but God, his stomach starts rumbling and he's so damn _hungry_…

Pa leans down, puts his lips right next to Gabriel's ear. "These two bitches are all _yours_, boy. You got their weight on you. So you eat up, and after you're through, you're gonna bury what's left of 'em all by yourself. You bury 'em deep, because if you don't, you go back in the barn with Lee and Jerry."

"It's a damn shame the way you treat her. Such a cute couple, too." Missouri pouts, and the gesture is pure Meg. "Little twisted sister and a cast-off angel with broken wings. You're damaged goods, boy. Go back to her, Gabriel. Give up this Dean nonsense, huh?"

The Demon makes John flash that fake police badge and smile. John's hands wrap around the woman's throat as soon as she closes the door behind them.

Meg and Missy stay at Jerry and Sophie Hayden's house. Missy gets excited when she sees all the pretty glass bottles in the bathroom. She accidentally breaks one, but Sophie doesn't mind, not any more.

Missouri goes to the pound and adopts a dog. It's a Saint Bernard mastiff mix that weighs 160 pounds. Missouri figures Dean's weight at 175; that's close enough.

The next morning Dean acts like nothing happened the night before.

Jerry has green eyes, but they're not as wide and pretty as Gabriel's are. Meg tries his meatsuit out for size, and when they have sex Missy insists that Jerry's eyes stay green. Afterwards Missy uses her knife on him. She keeps his eyes in one of the glass jars, a pretty blue one, as a souvenir.

Sam stares at Dean in disbelief. "Come on, Sam," Dean drawls lazily, "we're wastin' daylight. Got work to do."

Missouri keeps a journal that she plans on giving to Sam one day. She wants Sam to understand why she did what she did.

Dean sniffs noisily. He angles his head down and wipes his eye against the side of his arm. "Must be allergic to somethin' Bobby's got in the house," he says softly, and Sam just nods. They both know that's not true.

Bobby packs a duffel with amulets, special herbs and the "spirit trap" book. He hands the duffel to Sam and takes Dean aside. Dean frowns when Bobby thrusts another protection charm into his hand. "Take it, you idjit, and this time don't lose it on purpose like you did the other one, okay?"

Dean takes a long, deep breath. His voice is _too_ calm, almost childlike. He turns and looks Sam directly in the eyes, and the blankness in Dean's face is terrifying. "Pa wouldn't let anybody else eat the…the meat. Because of Layla's cancer, y'know? Said her mom was too old. Tough like leather." Dean lowers his head a little, stares down at the floor next to his feet. "So you know what Pa did?" Sam has a pretty good damn idea. Dean doesn't even blink, and Sam waits for it.

They load up the Impala and Bobby's truck with the duffels, brushes, paint cans and the Key of Solomon. Dean's all snark and swagger, and even Bobby quirks an eyebrow at him and shakes his head.

Meg settles in underneath Missy's skin; it's a comfortable fit, always has been.

Bobby follows them over to the spirit trap house in his truck. Sam can't help but think that the house is like something out of "The Three Bears": not too big, not too small. It's just right, down the road from Bobby's place, and the nearest neighbor is over a mile away.

Sam wakes up, looks over. Dean's sitting in the chair, his knees drawn up to his chest, his arms wrapped around the tops of his knees, staring blankly out the window. Dean turns his head slightly and his eyes are too bright. Vacant. Sam freezes, thinks that Layla is back. He thinks that until he sees that single tear running down his brother's finely cut cheekbone.

Missouri doesn't name the mutt until the black-eyed woman in her dreams asks her to. Gabriel's a _good_ name for a dog.

Missy liked Layla's eyes best of all, and she kept them in a tin box after Pa's finished with the rest.

"Don't, Sam. Don't. I could'a fought back. I could have, and I didn't. Layla and her mom died because I fucked up. I deserved whatever Lee and Jerry did to me."

_Pack your things_, baby, Meg purrs smoothly. _You want to see Gabriel, don't you?_

Sam and Dean spend the afternoon laying down entry and containment lines according to Bobby's book. When they finish Dean announces "This house is clean," in a squeaky high-pitched female voice like the little psychic chick from _Poltergeist_, and he's a little puzzled when Sam doesn't laugh.

Gabriel slips that silver knife of his into his pocket and thinks about using it on himself. One deep cut down the thin skin of his inside elbow should do it.

_Is he worth all this, John? Is he? Tell me Dean's not worth all your pain and suffering and_ _I'll let you go._ John's laugh rumbles in his chest, deep and low, as he tells the Demon to go fuck himself.

Gabriel the dog dies half an hour after Missouri feeds him a bowl of canned dog food laced with arsenic.

Dean dreams that Ellen finds out that Dean as Gabriel killed Ash. Ellen stabs Dean in the heart with one of Bill Harvelle's hunting knives. Dean doesn't put up much of a fight.

John's body kills six women in two weeks. They all look like Mary Winchester, and each time John's grip on his sanity loosens just a little.

Missouri times the dog's death with her watch, and afterwards she buries him in her backyard in her rose garden.

He doesn't like her, and he's pretty sure she can't stand him, but Missouri's probably going to die because of him, so Dean ignores the dream and goes anyway when Missouri calls.

Two more postcards come in the mail after that, each one written in John's blood. One from St. Louis, Missouri (BORED NOW), and a few days later, another one from Wichita, Kansas (WHAT'S THE MATTER, DON'T YOU LOVE ME ANYMORE?). "Come and get me, you son of a bitch," Dean mutters, and the brothers hunker down in the spirit trap house and wait.

_It's not good enough,_ Meg whispers to Missouri that night. _Dean deserves something special. You need to find it. You'll do that for me, won't you?_ Missouri nods and says she will.

In the dream Sam just stands there, unable to speak or move. Dean's too pale, too still. Missouri takes him by the collar and drags him off into the darkness.

Lee doesn't even bother to whisper. "Let us hunt him, Pa. He's no good for anything else anymore." Gabriel pretends he doesn't hear as he stacks firewood and he hopes Pa says_ yes_.

Two weeks later the last postcard comes from Kansas City Missouri, inked in John's blood with a crude drawing of a house and the words: HOW FUCKING STUPID DO YOU THINK I AM, BOYS?

Missouri decides to use belladonna herb. The lore says that whoever eats it is taken and killed by the devil, and that's just what Dean deserves.

When one of her neighbors compliments her on how good her roses look Missouri smiles politely and doesn't say very much.

"You done enough to him," Pa says roughly. "Don't wanna hear any more talk like that."

He's not in the habit of checking his caller id first. "Dean," Missouri says gravely, "If you want to save John, you have to come see me, and you have to come alone. Don't tell anyone else about this."

Her name's Cassie Robinson; Dean sees her hitch-hiking by the side of the road half a state away from Bobby's place.

"Personal stuff," Dean says carefully. He won't look directly at Sam. "Be back in a day or so."

"You lost your taste for the hunt, boy. Gotta get right back on that horse," Pa says sternly. That night he sends Gabriel and Jerry out to the roadhouse by the highway to pick up someone to hunt.

Hours later Kat has a hard time changing that flat tire until that hottie with the wide green eyes and blond hair stops to help her. He has a killer smile and she feels safe with him, right up to the moment he grabs her and pushes her inside that rusty old truck.

Damn headache starts small and gets worse; shagging ass from South Dakota to Kansas just isn't an option anymore, so Dean pulls into the Hampton Inn for the night.

The day after she buys the belladonna herb Missouri picks up a young male hitch-hiker named Rob. He's Dean's approximate age and weight.

Sam stands there staring blankly at the wall after Dean leaves. Sam sees Dean gasping his last breath, sees Missouri standing there crying, and that pit in Sam's stomach gets larger and heavier.

Cassie tilts her head up and presses her mouth against his just as Dean mutters something stupid like "Gotta early start tomorrow morning." Suddenly the idea of separate rooms seems pretty damned ridiculous.

Meg and Missy show up on Missouri's doorstep hours later, and she welcomes them with open arms.

His head fills with the sound of his slowly fading heartbeat, and all Dean can think of is that this is a wasted death. It won't free Dad, and Dean can't stop it.

Dean surrenders himself to Cassie's warm and gentle touch like he's been waiting for it all his life. He wakes up alone the next morning, and he's not surprised at all. Sooner or later everyone leaves him, so why the hell should she be any different?

Missouri adjusts the dosage of belladonna accordingly, and soon Rob the hitch-hiker joins Gabriel the dog out in the rose garden.

_It's all right,_ the reaper whispers softly. _I've got you._

"After you're gone, Dean, I'm going to spend some alone time with Sam." Meg strokes the side of Dean's face with Missy's long slim fingers. "Poor Sammy. He'll be all alone in the world now, and that's your fault too."

Pa and Lee and Jerry watch him like a hawk, but none of it touches Gabriel, not the girl's crying and pleading, not even the blood at the end of the hunt. Gabriel sleeps deeply and peacefully for the first time in weeks.

Missouri's skin turns grey; Missy's eyes roll white as the life is sucked out of her.

The bottle of beer Missouri gives him must be one of those damn light beers, but it's ice cold and after that long drive Dean drinks it anyway, despite that faintly sweet aftertaste.

"It didn't have to be this way, Gabriel," Missy says softly. "Look what you made me do."

The first wave of dizziness pushes Dean back against the couch cushions. He has a death grip on the beer bottle and he doesn't even feel it when the glass shatters in his hand.

_Well, will you look at that,_ the Demon says cheerfully. Images of Meg and Missy and Dean and Missouri flash and surge behind John's eyes. _Now that's something you don't see everyday…_

Dean stares into space over Missouri's left shoulder and the reaper slowly fades into view.

"All the things you did, all the people you hurt…" Missouri's eyes are wet with tears. "I saw it when you were a child, Dean. All those years ago, when your father first came to me. I didn't say anything then, and I should have."

Meg hates re-animating dead meat, so she leaves Missy's meatsuit at Missouri's house. She whispers in Dean's ear before she leaves: "I'll always be around, and you won't know who to trust. Now let's see, who will I jump into _next_? Pastor Jim? Caleb? _Sam?_"

The reaper pushes his cold dry palm against the side of Dean's face, but it's all_ wrong_. Life flows _into_ him, not_ out_ of him, and he can't understand why.

Dean doesn't remember Sam and Bobby showing up. He doesn't remember Sam helping him into the Impala, either.

Hours later and miles away, postal employee Herb Proctor kills his entire family and barricades himself inside his home. Meg makes the jump out of Herb just as the SWAT team enters the house after negotiations break down. The sight of all that blood makes Meg feel so much better. Too bad about Missy, though.

**_II. Blinded by the Light_**

"Unless you got a warrant, and I know damn well you don't," Bobby says quietly, "You got five seconds to get the hell off my land."

CSI Technician Cheryl Talbott gives Andy Gallagher that empty beer bottle Dean drank from to 'cause Andy asked so nicely, and afterwards none of the cops on scene remembers a damned thing.

"Haven't you been paying attention all along, Sam? Don't you get it?" Dean snarls when Sam tells him that none of it was his fault. "People die when they're around me. When we find Dad, I'm done. I'm gone."

"I love families, Johnny, you know that." Azazel's always cheerful, all the damn time. John can only sit there while the sonofabitch rambles on and on inside his head. "It's all about those pesky family ties."

Rumsfeld2 barks once, loudly. "Son of a bitch," Bobby mutters, and he goes over to the window to look outside.

The yellow-eyed dude pulled some strings, got Andy this sweet little apartment on the good side of town. Andy staggers out of bed, goes to the bathroom, gets a drink of water and then falls back into bed with a sigh. He cradles the bottle Dean drank from in his hands, then reaches out with his mind.

Showtime.

"You did a hell of a job fixing her up after you ran down those bikers, didn't you, Dean?" Hendrickson stands up, leans against the Impala and brushes the dirt off the knees of his expensive suit as Dean walks out on the porch, scowling.

It's a convent this time. John wears a priest's collar ("Looking good there, John boy," Azazel crows gleefully). It's wet work, quick and dirty. John uses a machete and a handgun. Seventeen people die.

Agent Reidy leans against the rental car. "I don't understand you, Sam. You're smart. You're better than this." He looks around Bobby's place and shakes his head. "You could live a normal life." When he hears that Sam laughs in Reidy's face.

"We never did have that talk, Sam," Hendrickson says, and he's smiling like he and Sam are already best buddies. "Is now a good time?"

Everything goes blinding white and Dean can't even scream.

"You took from me, boy," the older hunter in the trucker's cap says. "Time for me to take back from you."

Lee's already dead, lying dead next to the barn, and so's Jerry…

Missy's screaming but Gabriel won't let them get to Pa, he won't—

Gabriel blinks, tugs at his wrists but he can't get up…chair…handcuffed to the chair, and it's white all around him…

"My name is Dr. Sanford Ellicott," the man in the white coat murmurs softly. "You're a very sick young man, Gabriel, but I'm going to help you feel better. Don't be afraid."

They tie his tongue down and strap his arms and legs to the table. The shaggy haired freakishly tall kid stands there, grinning, with his hand on the switch.

"It's not as if you boys are all that close, anyway. He's been away for twenty years." Hendrickson leans forward, working the good cop angle for all he's worth.

The yellow eyed man claims Gabriel for the first time in Gabe's room, after lights out.

"Mine now…my fallen…"

Lightning flashes behind his eyes, in his mouth, underneath his skin. "Never wanted you around in the first place," Sam whispers in Gabriel's ear.

Dean comes out of the fog sitting on his ass, his back against the porch railing. Sam's there, right in his face. Hendrickson's right behind him.

"Dean's sick, Sam. He needs more help than you and your family can give him." Henrickson tries to hand Sam his business card. "You know where to reach me if you change your mind." Sam angrily bats the card away.

"Just a headache," Dean mumbles to himself. "Had 'em before. That's all this is." He leans heavily into Sam, and he stumbles as they walk back into the house.

His head hurts like a bitch, and sometime before dinner Dean slips into the auto yard, picks up a crowbar, and smashes the hell out of one of Bobby's rusted out junkers.

_You don't know me,_ Dean thinks as he stares at Sam. The urge to smash Sam's face in makes Dean's muscles ache. _You don't know anything about me._

"You're not my Dad," Dean snaps at Bobby hours later. "I don't have to listen to a damned thing you say."

Huh. It's only a damn nosebleed. Dean's had worse; he's not gonna _cry_ about it.

* * *

TBC


	5. When The Devil Gets The Best of Me

_**A/N: **_Okay, it's back. And it's _still_ mostly non-linear. Section title from _When The Devil Gets the Best of Me_, from Big&Rich

_**Disclaimer:**_ I do not own Supernatural. This is for entertainment purposes only, and not for profit.

* * *

_**Part 5 - When The Devil Gets the Best of Me **_

_**I. Message In A Bottle**_

_Be a good boy, Gabriel…_

It's not fear. It's precaution. Bobby slips the silver knife into the sheath underneath his vest. Dean might be younger and faster, but age and treachery counts for something damn it, and Bobby's not going down without a fight.

When he was three years old Sam dreamed of shadows. "Sammy, be quiet. Please, Sammy, you gotta be quiet."

Dean fumbles with the aspirin bottle with numb, clumsy fingers. He dry swallows three aspirin, tries to ignore the way all the glass and the mirrors in Bobby's house flash yellow instead of silver.

"Here." Kubrick just stares at the DVD and the large brown envelope in his hand. Creedie shrugs. "Gordon left this for you. Said he wanted you to have it in case something happened to him."

It was lonely being on the road with Dad sometimes. Sam remembered asking about Dean, asking if he was ever coming back. Dad always got this blank look on his face, like he was surprised Sam remembered Dean in the first place.

"Need to talk to you, Dean," Sam says, and Dean rolls his eyes. _Stupid bastard._

_Sam…please…help me…_He thinks the words, but they stick in his throat when he tries to say them out loud.

_You be good, and do this…_

Azazel decides you can never have enough spirits around, so he and John drive up to Harper's Island late one night, and John uses an axe to kill six idiot teenagers partying on the beach. John scratches a message in the sand: HOW YA LIKE ME NOW? with one of the kids' severed heads dotting the I. Instant urban legend.

" 'm tired, Sam," Dean just can't believe the kid is buying any of this. "I just want this to be over. Just want Dad to come home."

…_and I won't tell Pa what you did…_

Sam stopped dreaming of Gabriel when Dean came home.

The reaper's out in the yard, still wrinkled, still wearing that old looking dark suit, standing underneath the shadow of that gutted out van. The sad look on its face makes Dean's hands tighten around the handle of that crowbar.

Gordon looks pretty damn good for a dead man. He smiles at the camera and shakes his head. "If you're watching this, that means I didn't make it. I'm dead, and it's because of Dean Winchester. You might wanna go on with your life." Gordon shrugs. "That's fine. Want you to hear me out before you do, for old time's sake."

"I don't know what the hell is going on," Bobby says, "but he's not right, Sam. Don't tell me you can't see that."

"What the hell are you staring at?" Dean snarls, and the wrinkled dude shrugs. "The night she took you? You nearly died in the trunk. I was supposed to harvest you that night. I couldn't."

Dean swings the crowbar at him and the old wrinkled dude disappears.

Sam was nine when Lee laid on top of Dean out in the barn, covered the drugged boy with his own body like he was a blanket.

Sam saw it all at night.

"They left you by the side of the road like a piece of trash so we could find you," Missy says in a singsong voice.

Sam didn't tell Dad. He never did. These were visions, not dreams. He didn't want to see that look of disappointment on the old man's face, didn't want to hear him say "You're just like those bastards we hunt." A note mailed to Caleb solved that problem. Caleb called Bobby. Bobby called John.

"Freak's name is Dean Winchester. AKA Gabriel Bender." Gordon holds the picture up to the camera. "Now, I got hard copies in this packet you'll get with this DVD, and all the intel on his family and friends."

The bite marks on Dean's neck and shoulders…

"There's my baby," Lee whispered softly. "My good tight little bitch…"

The scars on Dean's back…

"Now, Gabriel," Pa's voice dropped to a low rusty purr that rattled Gabe's insides, even as Pa's belt painted white hot stripes on Gabe's bare back with every stroke.

Sam saw it.

"M'doin' this for your own good. Ya got sloppy. Can't afford to have cops comin'out heah."

Sam saw it _all_.

"If they really loved you, they wouldn't have dumped you in the first place."

_Not gonna lose you too, bro',_ Sam thinks to himself. _I'm not. I can't. _He sees that look in Dean's eyes, feral and wary and wired all at once, the same way Dean looked when he was released from the hospital.

"Winchester's a freak. A freak and a fuckin' cannibal. Remember that dust up with the Benders not long ago? He grew up in that house. He killed people and ate their flesh. He's a monster, Kubrick, an abomination, just like the things we hunt." Gordon sits back in his chair. "The rest of them are dead, and he's the last one. He's a Winchester now, and you and I both know leopards can't change their spots. Now, you can just ignore all this." Gordon shrugs. "Get on with your life, but I know you, Kubrick. I _know _you're not gonna just let this pass."

Sam woke up crying the day after he saw Lee and Jerry take Dean in the barn, over and over again.

"Kid's not right," Hendrickson says later. "Did you see that wild look in his eyes? Gotta set up surveillance of the place, see what else develops. This might get bloody. Dean might decide to clean house."

Reidy huffs. "That's what they get, harboring a psycho like that."

"Pa….please…please…'m sorry…sorry...no more…please…no more…good boy…I'll be a good boy…"

Pa never touched Dean that way, but Sam didn't care. He wasn't that broken up about it when all of them died that day but the girl.

"We gotta talk about this," and as soon as the words are out of his mouth Sam knows he's screwed. They're screwed. Dean smirks, sly and feral. "Nothing to talk about Sam. I'm not in a sharing and caring mood right now." When Sam reaches out to his brother Dean slaps his hand away.

Sam saw the people Dean lured in, saw Dean with his slicked back hair and his glasses. He smiled and was warm and friendly and they never knew what hit them until it was too damn late.

"Something you wanna say to me?" Dean growls darkly. "It's okay. You can tell 'em I made you do it. You tell 'em I made you do it all."

Saw what Dean ate after the hunts.

Dean's totally unprepared when Sam growls angrily, deep in his throat, grabs Dean by his shirt and slams him into the wall.

_**II.**__** Man In The Mirror**_

He feels Pa's hand on his left shoulder all the time now, rough and heavy and comforting.

_Dying_, Andy Gallagher thinks to himself. His heart thumps slow and heavy in his chest. _'m dying…._

"Are we having fun yet?" Azazel purrs inside John's head. It laughs when John slashes his own throat with the same knife he used to kill Pam Barnes with. "Nice try, old man." The blood stops flowing almost instantly. "I'm not done with you yet," Azazel coos softly.

Taking Dean Winchester in alive is always an option, but, Hendrickson's flexible. From the looks of the psych reports and what he knows about the Benders, Hendrickson figures "dead" might be doing the boy a kindness.

This time he's little, and Dad's big…

_Daddy, please don't let her take me…_

_Don't let her take me…_

He sees the shadow standing patiently in the corner. Waiting. He can see her, and he doesn't understand why Daddy can't see it…

_...please, Daddy... _He wants to say it, but he promised himself he'd be a big boy…

...a big boy, all brave and stuff and they don't cry and he _wants _to, but he _doesn't_…

It's getting harder to breathe and he can't even feel the mattress at his back. Andy chuckles weakly. Highly unlikely he's going to the other place. It's the basement for him, a quick trip down south.

He hunts people in his dreams.

Ellen calls the next day. Dean lies to her, smoothly, without a hitch ("Yeah, I'm fine") and promises to come by the Roadhouse even though he's fairly certain that he'll never lay eyes on her or that damn place ever again.

He tries not to struggle when he feels the hands on him and then Dean starts yelling but that doesn't matter 'cause nobody's listening…

Hendrickson and Reidy stake out Singer's place from the woods nearby. The local cops take up the slack, give them just enough time to eat and sleep for four hours. When the crap finally hits the fan Hendrickson wants to be there.

Be careful what you wish for.

"Those two over there, the man and the woman," Lee nods towards the couple. He drains the rest of his beer and sets the glass down on the table. "Better not fuck this up, Gabriel. You go on over there, bitch, and make nice. Me and Jerry'll be out on the parking lot."

Gabriel nods and goes to work.

Dean looks at Bobby's throat, knows he could kill him at any time, like he should have done the first time he laid eyes on the man.

One more push, that's all. Nearly done. If he finishes with Winchester, the yellow eyed man will bring him back. Andy's sure of it. He's been a good boy. He's been useful. If he fucks this up he'll never see daylight again.

The first night Pam Barnes dreams of a man trapped in a mirror tinted murky yellow. He's broad-shouldered, beautiful, trapped inside the glass like a fly in amber. His moss green eyes are dull with pain, clouded by confusion.

_Pa loved me,_ Dean thinks. _Took me in when my own family didn't want me._

Dean smells honeysuckle sometimes, and that strawberry flavored hand lotion that Missy liked to use.

The dreams were fucked up, but he could understand that. He's fucked up in the head, right? Dean wakes up shaking and shivering. His skin still prickles and burns from the shock treatment, and all he can see is Sam standing there smiling, with his hand on the switch.

The second night Pam hears him whisper his name. _Dean._

The glass is yellow, hard and slick underneath his fingertips. Dean stares at himself in the bathroom mirror. His hair is pale white, to match his eyes.

The third night Pam dreams about him Dean's eyes are closed. When he opens them they're a murky, dark gold.

Pam opens her eyes, sees yellow eyes and bright moonlight glinting off that silver knife blade. "Little psychic bitch like you shouldn't stick your nose where it doesn't belong," the voice growls, all low and whiskey smooth.

She doesn't even have time to scream.

Andy pushes out with his mind hard, one last time.

Whiskey with a holy water chaser. Dean drinks it down in one gulp, sets the glass down with a good hard thump. Bobby and Sam stare at him hard, and nothing happens. _Think you're so damn smart…_

The pressure between his eyes builds up, sudden and heavy and unbearable, and Dean feels something break inside him. It washes over him, like cool floodwaters, terrifying and wonderful at the same time. It's a relief because he's tired of fighting and it's over, it's finally over.

"Did some checking around. There's omens all around us. Demonic omens, wild weather, and it's headed our way." Bobby says grimly. "Need to come up with a Plan B, and pretty damn fast, Dean."

"Dean? My name's Gabriel."

The effort makes Andy's body shake and his heart stutters painfully. Full stop.

There's smoke in the car. Hendrickson tries not to breathe in as he fumbles for the door latch. He's light headed and nothing he does works. He looks out the window and there are people out there, all around the car, standing silent and bloody.

Standing cold and dead.

Gabriel smiles.

Reidy taps him on the shoulder and when Hendrickson turns around Reidy's eyes are as black as smoke.

"This is the part you're gonna love, John boy," Azazel says mockingly. "Family reunions always did bring a tear to these old eyes of mine."

The shaggy haired kid goes down first. Just a touch, a light one, and his knees buckle as his head rocks back. The old man's next. Gabriel's fingers ghost underneath the skin of his chest, and the hunter drops like a rock.

_Gabriel? Come here, son. _

The wind rises as Gabriel leaves the house. It lashes the treetops, kicks up dust in the yard. The dead are all around, silent shapes that fade in and out as the wind drives leaves and grit all around them, through them. He recognizes most of them, but Gabriel only has eyes for the man standing before him.

Pa looks different this time. He's scruffy, tall and dark with yellow eyes, and dark clothing. but Gabriel doesn't mind. He steps into his arms without hesitation, and the hug is tight and fierce.

"Missed you, boy," Pa whispers softly, and Gabriel closes his eyes and nods.

* * *

TBC Saturday


	6. Not Ready To Make Nice

_**A/N:**_ This is a comparably short chapter, a set-up for the longer ones to come. Chapter title taken from the song by the Dixie Chicks. Thanks to everyone who read and reviewed and lurked. And thank you for the author/story alerts! This chapter is a little less slashier than the rest, but the same warning applies. Oh yeah, there is character death in this chapter. Three of them.

_**Disclaimer:**_ I don't own Supernatural. This is for entertainment only, and not for profit.

* * *

**Part 6 – Not Ready To Make Nice**

The first spirit Kubrick contacts tells him to go to hell.

'_m dying, _Bobby thinks to himself. It's weird though. There's just the house, his house, but Sam's gone, and Dean's gone too. The only other person there is this young blonde woman with sad eyes.

_Freaks in the flesh,_ Henrickson thinks to himself. The older man Dean's with is John. John's eyes are this weird murky yellow color. Contact lenses. Has to be. Hendrickson stares at the scene in front of him, but he can't understand why he can't move a muscle.

"Dean? DEAN!" John pounds his fists against the darkness around him, yells Dean's name each and every time the boy looks at him. Gabriel doesn't even blink.

Dean never knew this, and Gabriel just wouldn't care, but Pa Bender's female cousin, all those years ago, was approached by a tall handsome man with yellow eyes who told her about this beautiful little blond boy who needed a good home.

Sam stares blankly into space as he sits by Bobby's bedside. He smells hospital antiseptic, hears the beeping of Bobby's heart monitor, over and over. It's comforting, but he wishes Bobby would wake the hell up.

Gabriel sees this old wrinkled man in a dark suit, standing by the side of the road as they drive off. Pa doesn't seem to notice, so Gabriel doesn't mention it.

"Well, now," Azazel claps both stolen meatsuits on the arms. He's in a damn good mood. "You boys ready to go out and have some real fun?" The demons inside Hendrickson and Reidy nod eagerly. "Make it good and bloody. I get bored easily. Afterwards, well, you know where we're gonna meet up."

That spirit board's an ungodly thing, but it's useful in this line of work. Kubrick got it from a voodoo practitioner down in Orleans.

It's different the first time Pa touches him like that. Lee always wanted to hurt him, to mark him up somehow. Pa's touch is gentle. It feels good, so Gabriel learns to relax.

The demon wearing Victor Hendrickson's body smiles as he looks in the trunk of the rental car. He likes the guns in there, and the feds also brought a couple of bullet proof vests. Nice toys.

The younger one at the back table is green-eyed and gorgeous, and it's clear the older man dotes on him. They're either father and son, or lovers; it's hard to tell which.

Layla's mother is still angry at him. Gabriel doesn't give a damn anymore.

Reidy can't understand why Hendrickson won't speak to him. Can't understand why he can't move his own mouth, or why his eyes are black when he looks in the rear view mirror.

"You're Dean," the blonde waitress says. Gabriel sits there, blinking. "I came by the Roadhouse, saw you there with my mama. I'm Jo Harvelle. You remember me?"

Jimmy Novak never knows what hits him. One moment he's sitting there, peaceful, on the back porch, and the next moment he's breathing in dense black smoke. Jimmy tries to hold on, but he's dragged into the darkness with one firm yank. _Howdy,_ Meg purrs._ I'm the answer to your prayers, buddy boy. _

"She gets off at eleven," Gabriel whispers, and Pa smiles a little when he hears that.

Hendrickson sees himself strap on his bullet proof vest, watches as his hands reach inside the trunk for the assault rifle. He can't make himself stop.

Lee's dead. So's Jerry. Gabriel remembers seeing them die. He's really not that broken up about Missy dying either. Pa's back now, and Gabriel doesn't want to share.

Reidy yells as he sees the cops go down in a hail of bullets. He can feel the grin on his face, wide and cheerful.

She smells good, fresh and clean. Gabriel lays down a line of kisses down the long line of Jo's neck. Jo smiles a little as she arches against him, and she goes out like a light when his fingers ghost through the skin right above her heart.

Bobby opens his eyes.

He's good picking locks now, on doors and cars. Gabriel doesn't remember where he learned how to do that, but it's useful, so he doesn't think about it too much.

The death toll at the Springfield Mall later on that afternoon is thirty five dead.

"Better behave yourself, Princess," the older man says. His eyes flash dark gold, and Jo immediately stops struggling against the duct tape on her wrists and ankles. Demon. She's seen black eyes before, but never anything like this.

"I know where they're headed," Bobby says hoarsely. "Layla told me…"

"Got some folks I want you to meet, Gabriel," Pa says. "They belong to you now."

John shuts down completely whenever he – whenever_ Azazel_ – touches Dean. He blanks it all out, the feel of _Dean's _skin, the taste of _Dean's _mouth, the noises _Dean _makes. _We havin' fun now, Johnny-boy? _Azazel rumbles softly.

John won't answer. _Not Gabriel, never will be Gabriel. Dean. _

Jimmy's next door neighbor reminds Meg of one of her old boyfriends from a long time ago. She never really liked the bastard, so she and Jimmy pay the man a visit, for old times sake.

"Is there a problem, Officer?" Gabriel smiles. He raises his hands up, slowly, and Deputy McFadden relaxes just a little. Big mistake.

A five mile stretch along Interstate 2-70 became a slaughterhouse during rush hour traffic. Two men opened fire on passing cars, causing a twenty car pile up. Four paramedics were shot and two state troopers were killed when they responded to the scene. The gunmen are still at large.

Gabriel laughs when Jo tries to knee him in the groin as he carries her into the cabin. She feels a lot nicer and softer than Missy ever did.

Deputy Alan McFadden is found in his car by the side of the road, unconscious, but still alive. The dashboard camera is shorted out and McFadden has no recollection of what happened.

Ash won't look at him; most of them won't. Gabriel stands in the circle, surrounded by the spirits of the dead. They're afraid of him now. Layla is the only one who looks him in the eyes. She seems sad, and Gabriel wonders why.

"You can't do this by yourself, you damn fool," Caleb's practically snarling now, and Sam doesn't even flinch. "It's not a weakness to ask people for help, especially when it's people who care about you."

Pa hides it, but Gabriel knows something's wrong.

He's in hell, all right, but he's strapped down and can't move. The dude standing over him smiles as he picks up the knife. "No, wait," Andy stutters, "there must be some mistake…"

"No mistake, sport," Alastair purrs. "Your boss says you were a little sloppy last time. Took too long to turn that green eyed boy of his. He didn't turn out exactly the way we wanted him to. Azazel wants you to learn from your mistakes."

The Demon's so pissed off it nearly crushes John's windpipe. John laughs anyway. "He didn't kill for you. He won't. Dean's still in there, somewhere."

"We'll start out small, Johnny boy. Let our boy get his feet wet," Azazel growls. "I couldn't have done any of this if he'd stayed with you, but living with those Benders was a God send for what I had in mind."

"Where you headed, Sam?" Ellen says quietly. Caleb doesn't say much. Sam's so intense this time he's scary as hell.

Alastair slices Andy's mid-section to ribbons; Andy never stops screaming.

"Dean," Jo says slowly. "You can let me go. You can. I won't say anything to anyone."

Gabriel rolls his eyes. That _Dean_ thing again. Getting pretty sick and tired of hearing _that _name.

The First National Bank of Braeden County was robbed at ten in the morning the following day. Twelve people were killed, including two security guards.

"You gone soft on me, boy?" Pa says, and Gabriel knows, in an instant. Letting that cop live was a big mistake. He stands there and he doesn't even flinch as Pa slaps him in the face.

" 'preciate the offer." Sam says slowly. "I really do." He packs salt, bottles of holy water and John's journal into his duffel. "I've got to do this by myself. Dean and Dad need me. "

"He's a bastard," Mrs. Rourke's spirit grumbles. She hovers above the spirit board, a wisp of light grey smoke that twists and turns on itself. "Layla thinks he's all lost and wide-eyed and innocent. I knew he wasn't going to let us go." Kubrick rolls his eyes . These things can be drama queens sometimes. "You tell me where he's going and I'll take care of the bastard for you. You and yours can rest in peace."

"I depend on you," Pa says roughly. "You're all I got left. You wanna walk out on me, boy? Or you want me to?"

According to witnesses the robbers were two men, one black, one white, armed with automatic weapons, wearing bulletproof vests with FBI stenciled on the back. On the way out the door they both smiled at the bank surveillance camera and waved.

"Pa, please..." Gabriel shakes his head. He can't be alone. Not again. Please, not again..."I'll do better. I will."

"Bored now," the demon in Reidy's body says. "Time to wrap this up."

_Got soft once,_ Gabriel thinks to himself, _and I sure as hell paid for it._ He closes his eyes. He can feel Lee's teeth in the back of his neck, his fingernails digging into his hipbones from behind. Pa punished him for that. Pa left him in the barn, let Lee and Jerry do whatever they wanted to. He deserved it. Failed his family. _Not gonna make that mistake again._

Sam picks the duffel up by the handles, slings it on his shoulder. The peck on the forehead he gives Ellen is short and sweet. He nods at Caleb, and then just like that, Sam's gone.

The next night Pa turns Jo loose in the woods. Gabriel hunts her down and snaps her neck like a twig.

There's no time to react, and he can't even put the gun down in time. Hendrickson knows he's screwed as he turns in the direction of the patrol cars and his mouth stretches open, impossibly wide, and he vomits out a huge thick coil of black smoke. Reidy's panicked, wide-eyed. It's too late.

Everything else is drowned out in a hail of police gunfire.


	7. Interlude

_**And now for something completely different**_

_**A/N:**_ Well, this is a departure for me, folks. I received a PM under another name (toodlepip) from Zatnikatel. Zatnikatel reviewed_ John Doe 317_ some time ago, and asked if I would expand the series. At the time I privately expressed concern about the similarities between my story "No Halo 'n' one Wing in the Fire" and her story "The Woods". If you notice, I never publically accused her and yes, I banned her from PMing me. That is my right as an author here on this site.

* * *

Here is her PM in its entirety:

Subject: Your PM…

After all these weeks it finally occurred to me that I could reply to your  
accusation of stealing this way. This is an author's note I pinned to a  
chapter in my Woods 'verse that I uploaded to and LJ straight after I  
received your PM:

"To the person who PM-d me this morning: no I did not steal the idea for  
these stories from you. I had no clue what the PM you sent me even referred to  
until it occurred to me to check your story list on FF and I came across a  
Benders tag you had written some time ago. A quick scan through your four  
chapter incomplete story compared to my twenty-two for The Woods are Lonely,  
Dark and Deep, and ten so far for The Killing Moon, reveals some coincidences:  
references to cannibalism, which was established in the episode itself; use of  
the nickname sasquatch for Sam, which is Show canon; a mention of Stockholm  
syndrome, which is a well-known phenomenon and certainly not a concept you  
invented for your story; and my choosing the name Gabriel, which I did for  
personal reasons [it was the name of my deceased son] and because my story is  
a re-imagining of Dean's Hell ordeal seasons 3 and 4 and I wanted to use an  
angel's name as a parallel to Castiel.

Come on: if I had stolen the idea from you I would hardly advertise the fact  
in a review of one of your other stories, and also would not have been stupid  
enough to have used the same name. This is a weird coincidence.

A great deal of thought, planning and effort has gone into writing both of  
these stories. To be accused of stealing any of it – idea, plot, content –  
is really upsetting, particularly as there are other Benders tags out there  
that have one or other of the brothers being abducted – some of which likely  
pre-date yours, let alone mine.

And can I just add that I would gladly have discussed this with you privately  
had you not locked me out of PM-ing/reviewing or emailing you back right after  
you PM-d me…"

Believe me or don't believe me: I don't care. And I debated long and hard  
over whether to contact you this way – but the more I thought about it the  
clearer it became that you must have derived quite a degree of sadistic  
pleasure from PM-ing me like that and then locking me out of responding to  
defend myself. Why should you be able to get away with doing that?

You will note that I did not name you in my A/N. Despite this I was inundated  
with PMs from people who figured out who you were because they had read your  
story. Like me they were baffled by your accusation. Given that I have nothing  
to hide, I likely will amend the A/N to include your penname for those who  
have this story on alert to read when it is complete. The fact there are no  
similarities between the stories apart from these few coincidences mean that  
it won't be me who is embarrassed.

* * *

Now, is this a threat?

Oh, I'm shaking in my boots. I'm a Scorpio, darlin'. I don't run from fights. I didn't even know we were having one, but if that's the way you want it, so be it. Call me combative if you want to. I prefer assertive.

_**Now, I have to ask this question, but so far I have not received a decent answer: Why now? If there had been no contact between her and me FROM MAY UNTIL NEARLY NOVEMBER 2009, and I was ignoring her (which I was) and I had not, had NEVER mentioned her, by name or inference in author's notes in any of my stories, why is she talking about going public now? She threatened me with going public, and I went there first. A good idea is a good idea. **_

_**Why now?**_

If she wants to mention me by name in her Author's Notes, either here on FFnet or LJ, that's fine. As a matter of fact, I really hope she does name me. That really will call attention to the similarities between the two stories.

If you notice, "No Halo" was published in 2007. Woods did not appear until 2008. As a matter of fact Zatnikatel mentions Stockholm Syndrome in her story, which is what I did a year earlier. I also mentioned Lee Bender raping Dean as Gabriel repeatedly, and the fact that Missy Bender was obsessed with Gabriel/Dean.

And then there is the name of Gabriel Bender. Well, let's face it, folks, I don't have a lock on that name, and apparently she doesn't either. Why is she approaching me about this after all this time with no contact?

It does seem to be really creepy to me that she would name a character who has been tormented, raped, mauled by dogs, and drugged after a dead son. My mother has been deceased for five years now, so by Z's line of reasoning, I should name a victimized character after her.

I will let my record speak for itself. Zatnikatel has 8 stories, none of which ever had over 60 reviews before now. The fact that "No Halo" is still in progress doesn't matter. I know where she got the idea from. As a matter of fact, one of her friends emailed me saying that the stories were so similar she thought "The Woods" was a shout-out to me. I don't believe in coincidences, much less 4 of them.

Now I realize that the way "No Halo" is written could be rather difficult for some people to read. Non-linear was the only way this story wanted to be told. If I want to write something else about Gabriel Bender, expand on the 'verse I created, or create a new one, that is my right. I don't have a lock on Gabriel or the Benders and neither does Zatnikatel**. **This is fanfiction, not copyrighted characters. As I said before, 'No Halo" came out in 2007. Woods came out a year later. There are strong similarities between the two stories. I will let the readers be the judge.

I'll say it again: if I did not have any contact with her for the last six months, and I was not bothering her, or accusing her publicly, and everything was private, why did she send me that email? Anybody out here have a answer? One that makes sense? Actions have consequences, and I'm willing to accept the ones caused by what I do. I went ahead and did what she threatened me with, and if I had to do it all over again, I'd do it the same way. Seems to me she should take responsibility for her actions too.


	8. Six Days On The Road

_**A/N:**_ To everyone who reviewed and PMd me with your support, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart. It's good to know you are out there. _suz mc_, you are very clearly a class act. Even tho we have opposing viewpoints, your comments were thoughtful, calm and reasonable.

_**A/N #2:**_ Section title taken from the song of the same name by Dave Dudley.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Supernatural. This is for entertainment only, and not for profit.

* * *

_**Part 8 - Six Days on the Road**_

_**Then:**_

Have you heard the one about the traveling salesman? Carl Peters never did think those kind of jokes were funny. On the last day of his life he stopped by the Bender place and never left.

_Damn muse,_ Chuck thinks to himself. He misses being able to slouch around his house dressed in his bathrobe, but writing those dumb horror novels wasn't working, so he has to try something else.

One thousand souls will open the hellmouth. Them's the rules. Azazel doesn't like it, but hey, what can you do?

Sue Ann invited one of Roy's nurses over one afternoon for lunch. Her name was Kate Milligan, and naturally Sue Ann smiled and said it would be fine if Kate brought her son Adam with her. There were more than enough bones for the altar.

The yellow eyed man held her in his arms that night and told her she was a good girl. The next day eleven year old Ava pushed her Daddy down the stairs. She smiled when she heard his neck snap.

On the last day of her life Bela Talbot deliberately leaves the alarm system off in her condo. Bela smiles as she dies, and her attackers never know why. Murder victims always go to Heaven.

Sue Ellen LaGrange prays for Roy, and she gets an answer, all right. _Not God,_ the Trickster thinks to himself. He likes to set things in motion and stand back and watch the fur fly.

Chuck doesn't know whether he should feel humbled or insulted. Reverend LaGrange's wife doesn't recognize the name of either _Carter Edlund_ when he approaches her about the book deal.

Sue Ellen thinks of Roy, thinks of him lying in that hospital bed, thinks of all the long years ahead of her, cold and alone. That's not gonna happen.

Ol' Yeller sometimes wishes the Benders had hunted more during their time, but they took Dean and turned him into Gabriel, so Azazel can't bitch _too_ much.

* * *

_**Now:**_

_**Tuesday**_

"Get the hell off me," Bobby snarls, and the nurses step back. "I'll walk out of here with no pants on if that's what it takes."

He's alone, really alone, for the first time in his life. No Dad, no Dean.

Ellen lies there in the dark with tears streaming down her face. Her chest hitches up and down painfully. She's still caught up in the dream, but as she stares into the darkness, she knows. Jo's dead.

_Didn't pray for this,_ Jimmy thinks to himself. _Please, God, I didn't pray for this…_

_**FBI SPECIAL AGENTS SHOT AND KILLED DURING RAMPAGE.**_ Sam sees the headlines, and God help him, the only thing he can think of is that at least Dean doesn't have Hendrickson and Reidy to worry about anymore.

_Dean, please,_ John yells it out at the top of his lungs, and Gabriel doesn't even blink.

Reverend LaGrange is a surprise. He reminds Chuck of that Walton grandpa, or Santa Claus in one of those old movies, minus the beard.

The headache is low and heavy, settles in right behind Sam's eyes. Everything is too light, too bright, and yellow.

Pa never left him. Pa came back for him, and that's good enough for Gabriel.

_Not bad,_ Meg thinks to herself as she looks at Jimmy's body in the mirror. He's pleasant enough. Nice to look at, but she decides against wearing that tan raincoat. Too Columbo.

Gabriel gets a rush every time he uses his gift. His skin tingles as his fingers ghost underneath his victims' skin. The more he uses it, the better he likes it.

Salt is good, rock salt is even better. Kubrick's been going to Jayson Supply Company for years, and they don't even blink when he picks up a three one hundred pound bags of the stuff.

LaGrange smiles warmly when he shakes Chuck's hand, and Chuck wonders how in the hell he hooked up with that cold fish of a wife of his.

The Impala's gone, and so is the Key of Solomon and that bag of containment amulets Bobby hid in the fireplace. Bobby reads the note Sam left and cusses loudly for a good half hour. Doesn't do any good but it does make him feel better.

Gabriel sees the reaper just about everywhere. He does wonder why it's still hanging around.

Kubrick hates evil, like this Dean Winchester freak, but there's no heat behind it. It's just God's will and His righteous wrath, nothing personal.

Sam doesn't sleep very much. The first vision hits Sam two hours after he leaves Ellen's place. He sees Dean and John walking into a tent.

* * *

**Wednesday**

_Going to see Daddy,_ Meg chants, over and over again. Jimmy stuffs his fingers in his ears and that does no good at all.

Lucas wakes up screaming twice that night. It's the only time Andrea hears his voice; he's mute during the day.

Sam checks caller ID each time his phone rings. He ignores Bobby and Ellen. He prays for Dean to call, but Dean never does.

Gabriel feels a chill the first time he sees Pa start a fire with his bare hands. He smells burning flesh, sees blonde hair, pale skin, and sorrowful eyes.

Jimmy sits with his back jammed up into that dark corner. He watches his body kill the woman just so he can take her car.

Rufus owes Bobby, but that doesn't stop him from pitching a fit on the way to Pam Barnes' place.

_LaGrange_ is the name on the signboard on the tent. Sam wakes up with his head pounding so bad he can hardly see, but he holds onto the name because it means something.

He doesn't remember when he learned how to play pool, but he must have, right? Gabe wins all three games, and $300 bucks. The six losers follow him outside to the alley to take their money back, and get a piece of that pretty little ass besides, and the damn fools don't even know what hit them.

Ash wasn't all that sociable when he was alive. Dead? He hasn't changed a bit. He gets into fights with several of the other souls, but it's that Gabriel kid with those cold green eyes that scares him the most.

Azazel laughs as he feels the psychic reach out for him. He lashes out at her without much thought. It's not that she's a threat, but it's just the principle of the thing, you know?

All of the case files that Hendrickson and Reidy handled are quietly put aside and closed, including the case involving one Dean Winchester.

Caleb's never heard of the dude, but Jim Murphy knows about Roy LaGrange right away. Sam hangs up the phone so fast he feels guilty about it, swears he's going to apologize if he lives through this.

Dark yellow light flares up in Pam's eyes. It fills the whole world, and she screams and screams as everything goes dark.

* * *

**Thursday**

Pa doesn't want any blood spilled, not today, so Gabriel plays at being Dean for a while.

Kubrick got the spirit board from the estate sale for one Bela Talbot. Damn shame what happened to her.

"Dean, right?" The large black dude sticks out his hand. Gabriel hesitates for the barest second, then he smiles and his grip is firm and tight. "Thought that was you and your Dad over there I'm Tom Haskell." He nods at the other man beside him, and Gabe decides Haskell's the greater threat. "This is Bob Grey."

Lucas spends the next day sitting quietly in his room drawing. Andrea calls him down for lunch, and while he eats she goes into his room and looks at his drawings.

Meg says "Howdy" to a couple more old friends on her way to LaGrange's. Jimmy screams as loud as they do.

By the third day Sam's headache is down to a dull roar. He dry swallows three aspirin at a time, just enough to dull the pain.

The eyes are yellow, and Lucas uses up an entire crayon filling the color in. The blood in the drawing is red, so much red, and Andrea goes pale when she sees the picture.

He smiles and laughs, drinks beer and when the hunters finally leave for the night Gabriel glances at Pa. _Time for a hunt?_ Pa says _no_.

In the second house Meg uses the steam shower to wash off the blood. You'd think that would shut Jimmy up, but nooo…

* * *

**Friday**

Andrea sees the poster for Roy LaGrange. _Couldn't hurt,_ Andrea thinks. _Couldn't hurt just to go up there. Just to see._

Gabriel dreams about cities on fire, and rivers of blood. He wakes up in the dark and stares at Pa's face for the longest time before he's able to go back to sleep.

"Faith healer, huh?" Azazel rumbles. "What d'ya say we stop and give 'em something to have faith in?" John's fingers brush over that spiky hair at the front of Gabriel's forehead as the boy nods. "That's mah boy."

"Yellow eyes and fire," Pam murmurs to Bobby. She's high on morphine, but she seems certain enough about what she saw. "You hunt this bastard, I want in, you hear me, Singer? I want in."

That set of twelve silver knives was specially blessed by Pope John Paul the 2nd. If there's an easier way to bring down an evil sonofabitch Kubrick sure in the hell would like to know about it.

"We got other generations out there, boy," Pa says softly. "We're all gonna get together real soon and have a fine ol' time."

Once Mrs. LeGrange announces that Chuck's doing a book on the good Reverend, the faithful line up to tell their stories. This stuff is gold, and Chuck doesn't even have to make anything up.

* * *

**Saturday**

Mrs. LaGrange takes one look at the two men standing in the back of the meeting tent, and she knows exactly what they are. There's a yellowish tint to the older man's eyes. The younger man is breath-taking, with the face of an angel.

"Today's your lucky day, kid," the brunette purrs. She puts her hand out and Gabriel takes it after a moment's hesitation."My name's Tessa."

Once Sam gets turned around on the highway, and the headache disappears. He knows he's headed in the right direction when he turns east and that dull ache spikes him right between the eyes. Dean and John are somewhere up ahead.

Ava knows a fellow predator when she sees one. The beautiful boy with the yellow eyed man is off limits. The rest are fair game.

Gabriel doesn't like the way Reverend LaGrange looks at him. It's like he's looking through him, into him, and Gabe doesn't like that.

They swarm around the reaper all at once, and Gabriel doesn't even blink as black smoke billows down its throat and nose. Its eyes turn black. Gabriel thinks that maybe he should care about this, but he doesn't.

_Daddy's little attack dog,_ Azazel thinks as he stares proudly at Gabriel. He doesn't have to wonder how much of Dean is left inside the kid. Winchester's kid is buried so deep he can't ever claw his way out.

_I see you back there, Sammy,_ the voice whispers inside his head, all sly and gleeful, and Sam jerks himself awake.

* * *

_**Sunday**_

This time he's little, and Dad's big…

They can see each other, but they can't touch, and Dean doesn't understand why.

_Daddy, please don't let her take me…_

He sees the shadow standing patiently in the corner. Waiting.

_Today's your lucky day, kid...._

He can see her, and he doesn't understand why Daddy can't see it…

_...please, Daddy... _

He wants to say it, but he promised himself he'd be a big boy…

...a big boy, all brave and stuff and they don't cry and he _wants _to, but he _doesn't_…

Dad looks at him, and he _sees_ him. Dean knows he does.

_Dad, please, help me…_

* * *


End file.
